


Autopsy of the Heart

by sangueuk



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-01-15
Updated: 2011-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:02:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangueuk/pseuds/sangueuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk and McCoy star in a study of romantic love set in the first year at the academy - directly inspired by philosopher Alain de Botton’s On Love – it has a classic plot -  boy meet boy, boy gets boy, boy loses boy etc. It’s indie, it’s angsty, it’s thinky, it packed with ULT (unresolved <i>love</i> tension). If they just talked about their feelings, where would be the fun in that?<br/><b>warnings</b>It’s super thinky/philosophical!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1-3 (of 24)

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve followed de Botton’s chapter headings, (sub-heading are mine), and structure as well as his quirks of numbering the paragraphs/shifts within each chapter because it’s fun.  
> disclaimer - I mean no offence and court no profits, these boys belong to others more talented and deserving, I merely borrow them, play a while then return them all cleaned up and smiley. Also, all borrowing from ‘On Love’ is based on admiration and awe and I do not mean any offence.  
> Thanks to awarrington for beta work!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My submission for STBB 2009!  
> http://nix-this.livejournal.com/66490.html - link to Art 1 by nix_this
> 
> http://ashleyj28.livejournal.com/21571.html - link to Art 2 by ashleyj28
> 
> http://the-sell-out.livejournal.com/357213.html - link to fanmix by the sell out

  
**Autopsy of the Heart 1-3/24**  


  


  
 **Part 1  
Romantic Fatalism  
Or  
Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire**  


 

 **September, 2255  
1\. **  
Leonard McCoy had joined the foreign legion to forget. The last thing he expected was that he might also end his dreadful luck with relationships.

He knew relationships could only work if there was connection and, since no one had ever understood him and, (he believed) he could never understand anyone else - least of all a woman - he was screwed. Period.

 **2.**  
Dawn, Fall in Iowa and love was not on his mind.

He’d overslept, (too much bourbon the night before), and hadn’t had time to take a shower.

Now, all that he could think about was death - imminent, certain, painful death. And he wouldn’t even have the satisfaction when the inevitable happened and his eyes popped and the shuttle disintegrated into a million pieces, of saying _I told you so_ to the annoying flight attendant who’d spoken to him like he was a kid or something.

Dammit, he hated people he didn’t know touching him - it was unsanitary, especially in such confined quarters.

 **3.**  
Strapped in like a toddler, he could feel eyes boring into him from his right. He turned in his seat, wishing he’d taken his jacket off as it had bunched up uncomfortably around his armpits.

The face was beaten up but handsome, young, strong and the young man’s lips looked dry as if he too had been drinking too much the night before in preparation for this flight.

Perhaps in an effort to break the hypnotic effect of the ice blue fixed on him, McCoy heard himself babbling and ranting about the dangers of space. He noticed at one point that he’d managed to shower spit in his new friend’s face.

They shared a drink from his hip flask, (hell the guy looked alright to him - he was bound not to have any cooties), and he talked while Jim Kirk, that was his name, listened to him ramble on about space sickness, his ex wife, his kid and how they’d made him pay extra for his luggage – damned books weighed a ton.

Then he threw up on Jim – hell of an icebreaker.

 **4.**  
When it came to Kirk’s turn to talk and maybe reciprocate with a few snippets about his background, McCoy noticed that, while letting slip a few cursory details about Iowa, (he had an elder brother and a bit of a thing for motorcycles), Jim looked dead ahead as he spoke which, while it gave McCoy’s delicate guts a bit of a break from the sonic stare, intimated that the kid might not be interested in being buddies back at him.

No matter, McCoy, while he told himself he didn’t need any new friends, had to acknowledge he’d felt an uncharacteristic desire to learn more about this kid; he hadn’t felt too interested in another human being, other than in their capacity as patients, in he couldn't remember how long.

 **5.**  
By the time they’d passed through security, McCoy was convinced he must have ingested some hitherto unnamed space-borne sex-pollen because, much to his disgust, he had to acknowledge that he might have developed a crush on his new friend.

 **6.**  
 _\- Hey, you sleaze, I found a pair of your underpants in the bathroom. They say hi._ McCoy comm’d Kirk.

 _-Keep them._

 _\- No REALLY. You’re a helluva gentleman, but they miss their pa._

 _\- Tell them I’ve moved on._

 _\- I’ll bring them to class tomorrow._

They spent a lot of time together over the next few days: sending dumb messages to each other, helping each other move in, drinking, bitching about the other students. He’d persuaded Kirk to stay over and sleep on the couch the second night; after all, he was too drunk to make his way back across the quad in the fog safely, McCoy reasoned.

In truth, it had only taken McCoy a few hours of conversation with Kirk to realize his new friend was smart, real smart and could have found his way back if he’d put a mask and ear-plugs on him, and spun him round five times. If he’d been sober enough to be honest with himself, McCoy would have recognized he’s wanted Jim to stay because he hadn’t wanted the evening to be over. The extra half hour of company, one more shared glass of bourbon - filled his empty heart.

And over the next couple of weeks, McCoy acknowledge he’d never experienced such a connection with anyone before and certainly not this fast. They talked about something and nothing most of the time and their friendship was easy-going, like they’d known each other for years. He had no idea how this could be. After all, they were so different; first the big age gap and, second, the kid was an out and out hedonist, a fuck-anything-that-moves adrenaline-junky while he was a conservative, hard-working grouch.

In the light of this, McCoy asked himself if it was _possible_ they’d met before because he felt like he _recognized_ the face, the colour of those eyes, the laugh and the smirk – there had to be a reason why this all seem so familiar? As he struggled to make sense of the feeling he settled on this; it was like he’d walked through a door, into a room he’d lived in before while still understanding that simply couldn’t have been possible. It rankled with him because McCoy believed in simple cause and effect not destiny, dammit.

They sat in easy silence at the same table in the cafeteria and, while Kirk scrolled through the headlines, (the kid was a news junky), and McCoy read up some notes from a lecture on his PADD, he thought, for what seemed like the thousandth time, how this – being with Kirk - felt _right_ and _comfortable._

McCoy didn't get it. And on many levels, he probably didn’t like it and he still scrambled for ways of explaining the 'fit' to himself –

Okay, how about this? It was as if he'd had this dream about something or about someone ‘right’ and the ideal had become a reality.

A _male_ reality.

Oh. No.

He had been trying not to think about _that_ part.

 

 **7.**  
“Of all the seats in all the shuttles, in all the towns, in the entire universe, you had to end up next to mine.” He drawled into the mirror while shaving one morning.

Whichever way he thought about it, he couldn’t convince himself that meeting Kirk like that had been a simple coincidence.

It took a while to piece together enough details; Kirk’s decision, McCoy learned, had been very last minute and hinged on a conversation with Pike although he didn’t manage to find out what exactly was said. It was enough for McCoy to decide it couldn’t have been mere chance that they should be sitting next to each other in the shuttle. Pike had been a bridge to McCoy meeting Kirk. Way he saw it, there’d been a goddamn _trail_ leading up to that moment.

”I may throw up on you.”

 **8.**  
He wasn’t about to work out the mathematical probability of his being in that seat and Kirk being in the next one after all, he was a doctor and not a mathematician.

He guessed their tight-assed Vulcan professor might have been able to do that for him but he doubted it would ever have come up easily in conversation.

 _If it had_ , it might have gone like this.

“And while we’re on the topic of love, Mr. Spock, what would you say are the chances of my sitting down next to Jim Kirk on that shuttle? Yep, that’s him - the ‘genius’ thug? Yes, the rude bastard reading all the way through your class and not paying attention. It must be a probability of what - _one_ in something… _huge_?”

“I fail to see the logic in your question, Doctor.”

“I am trying to ascertain, Professor, whether our meeting was _meant_?”

“Your human concept of destiny - It’s a fascinating theory yet flawed. It would be more logical to state the facts. You sat down next to Kirk in row B seat F. Since you are both tardy by nature, it would seem logical that the two of you should have been left with the least desirable seats on the shuttle and, hence your ‘meeting’.”

“A mystic might have said that it was evidence for a greater plan. _Think about it._ What are the chances? “McCoy would have insisted.

In the years that followed, McCoy was to consider many times where else he might have ended up and which alternative paths his heart might have followed without that chance encounter.

 **9.**  
McCoy didn’t believe in God so he wasn’t about to assume that the Big Fella might have directly intervened in his life after that shitty divorce. He wouldn't have taken pity on him and decided it was time for fate to stop kicking Leonard McCoy in the balls. Except, he _had_ saved a lot of lives in his time – that had to count for something if He was indeed keeping score.

While he didn’t believe in God, now, surveying that rough blond hair and those perfect fingers as Kirk leant over the pool table – McCoy might have argued for the existence of angels.

 **10.**  
 _Think CC wants to fuck me?_

 _Do it._ McCoy comm’d back.

The comm from Jim made him smirk. He was across the bar, had been right up in Cupcake’s space. The guy obviously hated Jim and the lack of chemistry between them had somehow ended up in a tense game of pool. Jim had sent the comms while Cupcake racked up. The heavy set cadet glowered at Jim and McCoy watched in amusement as his friend flirted and batted his eyelashes at him. Later in the game, McCoy wasn’t surprised to hear reluctant snorts of laughter from Cupcake; the Jim Effect was one powerful phenomenon none of them could fight for long.

Kind of the opposite of his own charming ways, McCoy thought draining his glass, suddenly feeling a bit rumpled.

Now that he’d gotten so friendly with Jim, he realized how fucking alone he’d been for the past year - at loggerheads with his ex, then his family over the breakup and terrified of seeing his daughter because it got her so upset at daddy leaving.

The bartender produced a clean glass for him and one for Kirk without being asked. Put them side by side. McCoy raised an eyebrow at him and slid the credits over.

The only time McCoy had found peace was working with patients and sharing an easy camaraderie with fellow professionals. In a new hospital, he knew it would take a damn long time to get to that again. But there was nothing like wiping the shit off the proverbial fan alongside medical staff, followed by a few beers to cut to the chase when it came to finding common ground.

As far as ‘civilian’ friendships went, he’d worked so many double shifts before enlisting for Starfleet he’d felt permanently discombobulated. He’d forgotten what it was like to talk to ‘real’ people and, had he felt inclined to make friends, he wasn’t sure he had the energy.

Yet – Jim was all about energy, McCoy thought, watching him pot the black then punch Cupcake on the arm. It was like this homeless dog had appeared in his life, its tail all waggy and he hadn’t the heart to take him to the pound.

Kirk saw his friend looking at him and winked at McCoy across the room.

He watched as Kirk put away the cue and drained his beer and McCoy’s heart leaped a little as Jim walked towards him. Did friendship make you feel _this_ full or was this --?

 _Shit_. His stomach lurched.

McCoy had sensed _something_ , some kind of realization creeping up on him for a while now. He fought it, hated the fucking word even. But this _was_ love.

“I’m drunk,” he informed Kirk, pushing his empty shot glass away.

“No shit, old man,” Kirk said. He downed his own, licked his lips and hooked one hand under McCoy’s armpit to encourage him off the bar stool.

McCoy leant on his friend and they made slow progress towards the door. By allowing himself to even think the L-word, he had inadvertently created an imbalance between them. Now, dammit, there was more feeling on his side than Kirk’s. Everything seemed to swirl and the music had become muffled; all he could hear was his heart pounding in his throat and all he could smell was Jim and whiskey and somehow, miraculously, they’d ended up in a cab.

Fuck, he thought just before he passed out on his bed later with a mumbling, snoring Kirk just a few inches away; love was repeating on him again. This was about as inconvenient as a skunk at a prayer meeting.

 **11.**  
It hurt to think, but his brain was going to make him do it anyway. McCoy squinted at Kirk’s back when he woke up, angry with himself, his bladder bursting and his mouth full of gravel. Why, _why_ had this happened again? And when precisely had the bastard started sleeping on the bed and not the couch?

Kirk sighed next to him and shifted about, one bare leg tangled under the sheet the other splayed over it. He faced McCoy now, his line free face, soft and innocent, his lips parted. McCoy ignored the pressing need for the bathroom a minute longer so he could examine that face. Looking at him close-up like this damn near killed him. You’d have to be blind not to see how pretty the little bastard was. But that didn’t explain –

McCoy shifted a little closer so he could feel Kirk’s whiskey sour breathe on his face.

This was what was happening, he got it now; it was like the immune system, high levels of stress made you open to illness – in other words, if your defenses are down, you’re open to attack. He’d fallen in love, maybe, because of all the crap of the past year, because he’d had a need to _be_ loved.

It wasn’t Kirk. It really wasn't fair to blame the little fuck for looking like that, being so damn funny, and scarily smart – the ‘fault’ was _his_. McCoy reluctantly edged away and headed for the bathroom. Great, he, Leonard Horatio McCoy, simply had a genetic defect - call it his basic, needy personality.

Taking a leak with a boner was never fun but it gave him time to finish off his train of thought.

So, if his ‘needy’ theory was true, it would mean that if _someone else_ had sat in that empty seat next to his, McCoy would have fallen in love with _them_ instead. That’s right. It wasn’t Jim being the cause of all this. It was he, Leonard Horatio McCoy, being a sad and lonely sap. Anyone happening along could have equally been the unwilling recipient of this poor country doctor’s desires. He grinned sardonically at this dumb-ass notion as he flushed and made his way back to the bed. _Shit_ , that other person could have been Cupcake! It could have been the Asian guy sitting across from them on the shuttle who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Jim; forcing McCoy to give him his best scowl to warn him off.

 **12.**  
“Professor Spock, let me ask you something.”

“Doctor?”

He could just imagine the stiffening of his back, the complete lack of interest in the Vulcan’s face. McCoy was enjoying these imaginary conversations.

“Continuing our discussion about love…do you believe humans fall in love because they need to be _in_ love? As opposed to loving a specific person and love being triggered off by the beloved's unique/lovable qualities?”

McCoy remembered the night before, how Jim’s t-shirt rode up his back a little when he bent to pick up the chalk. So, that could have been Cupcake’s ass he was getting all dry mouthed about, eh? That’s right, _Cupcake_ making him hard.

Well? _Professor._

The sleeping Kirk stretched beside him and McCoy felt his neck flush a little. He remembered how Kirk had leaned against him that time on the shuttle while they talked. Could that moment have felt anywhere near as special if it had been with Cupcake rather than Jim?

Kirk’s foot brushed up against his and McCoy felt a flicker of heat between his chest and his groin. He knew then with a certainty, that no one else could have this effect on him – sure in his cock but not on his almost-given-up-on-this-shit _heart._

If he allowed himself to be seduced by the math and then believed that their meeting could be explained by probability, equations and ‘chances that…’ then the moment would no longer have significance. This wasn’t quite as seductive to McCoy.

Ever the romantic, McCoy preferred to believe that there was always going to be a chance that he and Jim _might_ have run into each other. That meeting, McCoy decided once and for all, when Kirk opened his eyes and smiled at him, _proved_ one thing – there was some _imperative_ out there that he and Jim be together. There was _supposed_ to be love between them whether it be the love between friends or the love between… shit what would _that_ make them? Lovers?

Well they didn’t have sex – so the 'love of a married couple' probably fit best.

Jim shifted beside him, blinked and cleared his throat.

“Morning, Bones,” he mumbled, then went back to sleep.

McCoy found himself daring to hope that his feelings of loneliness had drifted away into the past.

“Morning yourself, kid.”

 

  
 **Part 2  
Idealization  
Or  
Wearing Rose-Colored Spectacles**  


 **October, 2255 – March 2256  
1.**  
Is it possible, Sulu wondered, that we fall in love because the opposite of being in love would be existing in a state of cynicism, the state of _not believing_ in anything?

By allowing ourselves to love, just for a while, as we pretend that the beloved has no faults, does it lift us into believing that anything is possible?

He drank mineral water and ate fruit in the cafeteria during his mid-morning break.

 **2.**  
On the shuttle, Sulu had watched the bruise faced, blond delinquent talking with the scruffier older man; it was the altercation with a member of the cabin crew which had attracted his attention in the first place. He'd learned their names soon after.

In the years that followed, Sulu would allow his mind to reassess these fifteen or so minutes, when James Kirk had first made an impression on him. At the time, he’d experienced irritation at McCoy's rudeness then a thunderbolt of unexpected _feeling_ , something close to fascination, when he saw Kirk put his lips to McCoy's flask. Now in the cafeteria, he remembered a moment on that shuttle, when McCoy had looked daggers at him and Sulu wondered how an individual with so little control over his emotions managed to be, according to his reputation, an excellent surgeon and psychiatrist.

 **3.**  
He remembers thinking Kirk had looked lonely - like a man who hadn't had an arm around him, other than to pull him into a sexual embrace, for a long time.

McCoy, on the other hand, looked like he freely chose never to be touched. Yet he shared his flask with a perfect stranger.

Not for the last time, Sulu wondered what on earth this friendship was based on.

 **4.**  
Sulu was a perfectionist. He tolerated no weakness in himself and none in others - certainly when it came to matters which required dedication and hard work.

Fast tracked straight into year two of the academy, just like Kirk, and after just six weeks, it was apparent he was one of the best pilots in his year. He believed in repetition, learning a skill, honing it until it became a part of you then finding something else you needed to improve. For him, life, work, his passions required, _demanded_ zeal.

But Kirk had de-railed him. To his horror, Sulu realized that faults, imperfections and weaknesses could become something else when perceived through the eyes of love.

 _That moment_ , the lips around the flask, that's when it happened. This was when Sulu's disciplined mind had become a pile of dropped papers.

With love came the idealization of all of the beloved's blemishes in conduct and appearance.

In other words, in his eyes, James Kirk could do no wrong.

 **5.**  
In the months to come, Sulu would notice:  
• Kirk often ate with his mouth open, especially when he chewed steak  
• he burped very loudly in the bar after too much beer  
• he punched people too hard on the arm when he should have been hugging them  
• he left his clothes strewn all over his room floor (this detail courtesy of an overheard argument between Kirk and McCoy)  
• he often turned up late and hung over for lectures and classes  
• in piloting class he was exceptionally skilled but a reckless slave to adrenaline rushes which jeopardized his chances of passing

Had it been someone else, Sulu would have reacted with indifference or disapproval. But under the umbrella of love, these facets of James Kirk instead _added_ to his glamour and reaffirmed in Sulu’s mind that he was the most amazing human being he had ever cast eyes on.

 **6.**  
Sometimes (whenever he got a chance), Sulu sat as close as he could to Kirk in the cafeteria. They’d never spoken.

A low, frosted glass partition divided up the officers from the rest of the cadets. He noticed that Kirk and the doctor sat together often. Whereas _usually_ two men might sit opposite, Kirk and McCoy tended to re-arrange canteen furniture and set their chairs alongside each other. Which led Sulu to consider that perhaps the doctor loved Kirk too? Although he had also noted that both men would do this regardless of who sat down first.

But then, Kirk sat very close to a lot of people.

 **7.**  
Just five minutes ago, Sulu had bumped right into Kirk and his fruit salad had flown off the tray and melon and yoghurt had splattered onto Kirk’s boots.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Kirk had said, flashing a gut-wrenchingly bright smile, taking a bite out of an apple.

Sulu hadn’t been able to say a word back. He’d scrabbled on his knees and tried to wipe the food off the scuffed boots with his napkin, dimly aware that this was an entirely apt position for the two of them, Kirk on a pedestal and he on the floor hardly daring to gaze up at him. Kirk sauntered off to join his doctor friend at their usual table.

Sulu enjoyed being a romantic and, with a touch of irony and self-mockery, over the coming months he would allow this image to represent the difference between them, between Kirk’s world and his.

It seemed he’d got where he wanted to be because he used his talents and worked hard while Kirk had gotten where he was with effortless intelligence and charm. Kirk was at the top of the mountain while he, Sulu, pan-handled at its base.

 **8.**  
Sometimes, while taking an extended shower and with his cock in hand, Sulu would reward himself by running an image of Kirk sitting on a throne, not unlike the captain's chair in a Starfleet ship. Sulu was his acolyte, bathing Kirk's feet, dressing him, pulling his robe aside and resting his forehead on Kirk’s thigh before he was given silent permission to touch him. And Sulu would place his lips reverently around the tip of Kirk’s penis and worship him while the Captain’s hand rested on Sulu’s head. It didn’t suit Sulu that Kirk should be a cadet in his fantasy.

Naturally the fantasy became more perfect each time - Sulu had very high standards.

Whether this was love or obsession - he knew that only time would tell. For months he’d feel a constant craving to see Kirk and an ache when he wasn't there.

And because nothing would stand in the way of Sulu's success, he utilized this excess nervous energy in his studies, his flying and his fencing. His beloved plants, on the other hand, were too sensitive to risk being exposed to anything as negative as unrequited love, so Sulu mastered and transformed the energy into devotion in the hot house – for their sakes.

 

Part 3  


  
 **Part 3  
The Subtext of Seduction  
Or  
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not**  


 **October - November 2255  
1\. **  
McCoy was a scientist. He knew much about how people and the galaxy were put together; he was learning the inner workings of alien bodies and he hoped that by the end of his stint at the academy, he would have cracked the vaccine for Melvaran mud fleas.

The art of seduction, on the other hand - this left him uncertain and furious.

 **2.**  
Thoughts about Kirk refused to leave him.

For example, in the medical labs, he found his mind drifting to Kirk’s cracked lips. He wondered what he might use to salve them and how he could engineer events so that he might be the one who smeared the remedy onto Jim’s beautiful mouth.

It was a miracle that he didn’t drop something lethal on the lab floor and wipe out the entire campus.

 **3.**  
Other thoughts were whimsical. _He’s a great guy, we could be life-long friends_ or _he’s just what a bitter, grouch like me needs!_

Most often, Kirk-thoughts wouldn't be so _verbal_ ; they'd be unexpected, _visual_ assaults in his head in full-scale colour which triggered random trickles of fire in his groin – not so bad if he was alone, but potentially damned embarrassing in company.

Thoughts which haunted him included:  
a) a flash of Kirk’s tongue when he took a sip from his flask on the shuttle that first day  
b) his eyes, jeez his fucking eyes  
c) his fuck me, fuck off swagger  
d) the way Jim _persisted_ in punching him on the arm  
e) the way he’d christened him ‘Bones’  
f) the way he refused to be daunted by McCoy’s gruff manner  
g) the way he looked over his cards when he played poker, distracting his opponents with a look they saw as ‘revealing’ but was a you-wanna-fuck-me-dontcha decoy so he could take their credits.

 **4.**  
He hadn't saved Kirk's number on his comm and had taken to deleting messages as soon as he read them. Well, it made him feel less of an idiot and like he might have some actual control over his destiny. Now it had backfired; he hadn't heard from Kirk in days, and he was missing the hell out of him.

McCoy couldn’t just pop around to Jim’s dorm, could he?

And how precisely did they manage to not bump into each other on such a small campus? Well, it shouldn't have surprised him - both had a ridiculous work and study load and McCoy, for one, hadn’t joined Starfleet so he could spend all his time behaving like a cheerleader in High School, hoping to bump into the dreamy football captain.

Still - if only he could recall the number for Jim’s comm. Not looking at the number when it had come up on the screen in the past had been a conscious ploy, working around his fucking photographic memory; trying to be in control. Now he was regretting it.

As it was, he'd have to rely on bumping into Kirk on the ‘off-chance’, and this was getting exhausting

 **5.**  
A stroke of luck, (McCoy hadn’t counted how many days had passed, he _hadn’t_ ), and _there he fucking was_ weaving through the tables and other cadets in the cafeteria.

McCoy watched over his PADD as the pilot guy, Sulu, cleared up his breakfast from Jim’s boots. He gulped when Kirk spotted him and headed his way.

McCoy didn’t think it could be possible to want to stab a piece of fruit for sharing more intimacy with the object of his desire than he ever could.

“Hey, Bones! Anyone sitting here?”

It was hard pretending to keep his eye on his PADD but he managed to control a shaking hand and shrug in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner but probably came over as a spasm.

“I lost my comm, man. What a jerk!” Kirk straddled the chair and edged closer to McCoy.

“Hmmm?” Was all McCoy could manage. He noticed the gleam of apple juice on pale, plump lips and watched Kirk’s teeth grinding the pieces into submission.

“Can you give me your number again?” Kirk said.

Was this a heavenly choir playing in his ears?

“Sure. I’ll punch it in for you,” McCoy said.

He took the comm, and as he entered the details, he noticed the heavenly choir had shut the fuck up when it dawned on him that he was, in fact, a sap who’d fallen for a kid who didn’t know if he was alive or dead.

“You’ve still got my number, right?”

“Yes,” McCoy lied. Gruff; his own voice sounded gruff. Fuck.

 **6.**  
Four days passed and McCoy had spent more time staring at his comm waiting for it to chirrup at him than he’d have cared to admit. It took on a life of its own as he placed it gently on the lab bench, by his bed...

...waiting, waiting.

 **7.**  
On day five, the comm. glowed to life.

“Bones!”

“Jim.”

One word, one syllable that summed up everything he wanted in life.

“Whatcha doing tonight?”

McCoy stared at his PADD nestled on his chest where he’d dozed off on the bed.

“Studying.”

“How about you and me go see a band downtown?”

McCoy’s heart leapt. “I really do have to study…”

“Okay, man, no problem. See you around.”

He wasn’t supposed to do that. He was supposed to ask again, _insist_. Shit.

McCoy saved the number.

 **8.**  
Okay, let's look at this rationally, McCoy suggested to himself. He's only young; maybe he doesn't know how to express his feelings yet, what he wants and needs.

Wait a minute, that's _you_ , his internal voice growled.

Nevertheless, McCoy decided to actively look for signs of mutual attraction.

By mid-November, all he could say with assurance was that everything Kirk said or did confused him. This was ironic seeing as how the kid was the most honest, guiless person McCoy had ever met in all of his work-and-no-play life. Surely then, he’d be open about attraction? Wouldn’t he?

Much like he, Leonard Horatio McCoy, _wasn’t_ being.

“You ever been in love, Bones?” Kirk asked him one cool night as they waited for a cab home.

“I…yes. I’ve been married.” He shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets.

Kirk turned to him and looked long and hard. Why? Why couldn’t the bastard communicate like a normal person? What was he trying to say with that look? Kirk _knew_ he'd been married.

“Have _you_?” McCoy’s voice sounded like a squeak to him.

And still those eyes held him.

“No…maybe…” Kirk said and looked away, drawing his scarf higher up his neck to cover his mouth and nose.

 _Maybe_? How can one word bolt through your body like that?

The next afternoon, in the cafeteria, McCoy tried not to look like he was scanning the cadets for his best friend. He really fucking worked at appearing nonchalant but, when he saw Kirk sitting with Gaila, he felt himself colour.

As he approached, Kirk pushed his chair back and spread his legs a little.

As a doctor, McCoy knew more than most about body language; he made it his business. You could learn a great deal about a patient's pain from the way they used their hands while they described it, whether their hands were open or closed, whether they jabbed fingers at the site of their discomfort.

But he couldn’t read fuck about Kirk.

Sure, Kirk always seemed to open up physically when McCoy was near him. Then again, he was never _not_ with Kirk in order to observe how he’d be around other folk.

Shit, his head hurt.

He scraped a chair closer, set his plate down.

“You ok?” Kirk said, scanning McCoy’s face, touching his hand which sent a shot of adrenaline straight to his groin.

Why did he do that? What did it mean?

“Course I’m ok, you dumb fuck,” he growled. “Pass the salt.”

“It’s bad for you, old timer, what with your class A personality – you’re heading for a heart-attack…”

Gaila giggled at Kirk’s remark.

Shit, maybe he should stop using salt so much. If it made such a bad impression...and since when was he the one on the receiving end of health advice?

 **9.**  
They sat on Kirk’s bed drinking whiskey. The mattress sagged in the middle and McCoy’s buttocks were working overtime trying to counteract the natural incline towards his friend. He’d never fought so hard against something he wanted so much.

What he needed was a sign, then he'd stop fighting.

Was this it?

Kirk snaked his arm around McCoy’s neck and he responded by leaning in a little too eagerly. Well, it was the bed's fault, wasn’t it? And Jim was too drunk to notice.

“Shall I tell you a secret?” Kirk slurred.

“I’ll warn you now, if it involves concealed body parts or a crime, it’s my duty to report…”

“You fucking kidding me?” Kirk hiccupped, and then grinned. “Shit, you and your dead-pan thing.”

McCoy almost sighed in relief – if he wasn’t careful, the kid would dump him for someone altogether more fun.

“What’s your secret, Jim?” He looked dead ahead but he was aware his voice was whiskey warm - an invitation.

Kirk pulled his arm away, closed his eyes and leant against the headboard, his near empty glass lilting precariously on his thigh. McCoy was glad it wasn’t his own bed, despite the fortuitous sagging.

“I wouldn’t know if I was in love if I was…like…you know, _in_ love…”

McCoy really, truly didn’t know how to react. Guys didn’t talk about this stuff. He cleared his throat. He waited for his friend to unravel this strange fucking moment. He smelled so good, of beer, whiskey chasers, tobacco from a cigarette he'd insisted on having that some girl offered him outside the club. _She fucking wants me Bones, I could lose her cause you're being a tight-ass._

“How do I know if I’m in love, Bones?” Kirk opened his eyes wide and McCoy’s mind was suddenly full of valentines’ day card couplets and thoughts of limpid pools.

Overwhelmed with self-disgust and panic, and half a bottle of malt, he staggered to his feet and threw up in the sink.

When he came back Jim was asleep, sprawled on the bed. McCoy removed Jim’s boots, pulled off his socks, took the empty glass from Kirk’s hand; and when he was absolutely sure that his friend had completely passed out, he indulged in a quick, angry jerk-off at the foot of the bed, watching his beloved's chest rise and fall, dragging his eyes across Jim's taught belly which he'd managed to uncover just a little without waking him.

Jesus - this was so fucking wrong.

CONTINUED in next part! 


	2. 4-7 (of 24)

**Autopsy of the Heart – parts 4-7 (of 24)  
**

  
**Part 4  
Authenticity  
Or  
It’s Easy to get what you Don’t Want **   


**November 2255  
1\. **  
Kirk's self-esteem was an interesting animal. He knew he was good looking, _really_ fucking smart, a great fighter and a great lay. He also had some notion that he might be a great leader of men.

What he wasn’t sure about was whether or not he was lovable. He knew this doubt was his ego's Achilles heel (fucking smart, remember?)

 **2.**  
In matters of _seduction_ at least, (because he couldn’t honestly say, hand on heart, that he could draw on experience in matters of _love_ ), in these he was the king unparallel.

Thing is, if he met some woman, or on occasion a guy, who he liked or wanted to fuck, it rarely reached the rejection stage because Kirk had a radar - a 'sense' of being able to read people’s intent. The upshot was that if someone wasn't sexually attracted to him, chances are he wouldn't have made a move on them in the first place.

 **2.**  
McCoy he couldn't read.

It had crossed his mind that McCoy didn’t like guys; if so, that was fine of course, and he’d have to settle for friendship. It wasn't what his heart cried out for right now but it would do.

But tonight, something had happened which had really fucked with his head.

 **4.**  
It would be unfair to call this routine, not with this gorgeous woman’s legs wrapped round him in the alley but, fortunately for sexual etiquette, autopilot of the thighs and pelvis had taken over. Kirk grunted into her chest while she moaned and clawed at his arms; it didn’t make a difference to his rhythm that he was thinking about something entirely different - Bones in the shadows being blown by some guy in engineering class.

He’d seen them leave together; as far as he knew McCoy hadn’t pulled once in the three months he’d known him, so Kirk had to follow, to find out what was going on. He’d taken the girl’s hand– she’d been making eyes at him from the bar – and pulled her smiling through the crowd, pursuing the two men as they headed outside the club.

But he'd lost them and assumed McCoy had gone home.

It wasn’t until the girl’s panties had been removed and Kirk placed them thoughtfully around his wrist like a bracelet so they’d be easy to find later, it wasn’t until he’d positioned himself with her leg looped over his inner elbow ready to lift her with his ramrod cock waiting to go, that he’d heard a moan, and a thick southern drawl.

“ _Fuck_ \- you got a sweet mouth.”

A shudder ran through Kirk, his mouth dropped open, he squinted in the dreadful light in the direction of that sexy voice and, with impeccable timing, the girl guided him into her very wet pussy.

Bones!

Jesus - he was going to come in one stroke but he really couldn’t let this sweet girl down.

 **10.**  
Thoughts like _why him and not me_ went a long way to making Kirk last.

Kirk clenched his teeth and he rolled his hips for variety.

“Fucker,” he stated.

The girl hesitated, “I’m _sorry_?”

“No, no, not you sweetheart, sorry, I’m getting cramp in my thighs.” He kissed her on the cheek and continued grinding into her, imagining the wetness was Bones' mouth.

“How you doing?” He choked out.

It sounded like a chat with an old friend rather than a lustful liaison in a seedy alley – a realization that made Kirk ashamed of himself. He decided to focus one hundred percent on this girl. It was a challenge when what he really needed to do, was to wrap something around his head and shut out the sounds coming from his right.

“Oh Jesus, like that, _yes_.”

A mixture of lust and sorrow filled Kirk’s chest. Damn - he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t get off like this. The girl was benefiting hugely from the fact that he’d had too much to drink and too much on his mind and was gasping short little breaths, her hair tangling around her neck and sticking to his face.

He couldn’t shut out Bones - couldn’t bear that he hadn’t chosen _him_. Why not him?

The sound of Bones moaning as he came into the other guy’s throat made Kirk’s world collapse into an all too familiar sense of lovelessness.

Still, he thought as the girl gave one last shudder and clung to him for dear life, this wasn’t so bad. _She_ wanted him.

 **11.**  
It goes without saying that Kirk didn’t mention the other guy to McCoy; a bit of campus hacking and he soon knew more about the motherfucker than his own mother did.

Michael Connolly - high achieving, dark haired, teetotal, tall with a certain feminine quality about him. Maybe McCoy didn’t go for blond was all, Kirk thought, sipping his coffee in the canteen. Kirk had skipped breakfast. He’d skipped his morning wank.

He had to make plans. Kirk wasn’t about to lose to anyone. First, he’d have to work out what it was that McCoy liked about this guy then make Bones see that he had it better and bigger in him. Bones would have to make the first move. Knowing how proud McCoy was, how afraid he’d be, he’d have to invite him in, make sure Bones had no doubt it was an invitation. It was all going to be about timing.

The next day,

“You want to come over for a beer tonight?” McCoy said.

Kirk noted bitterly that he’d never seen his friend look so relaxed. He liked it and hated it at the same time. He gazed hungrily at the long limbs and post-coital eyes and at the same time felt like tearing out his own heart out and throwing it in McCoy’s face.

“I have to study,” he said.

McCoy raised his eyebrow. “Eat somethin' didn’t agree with you?”

So where did _that_ accent suddenly come from? Kirk would have to remember that - the more Bones was getting the more he drawled.

Kirk, for once, couldn’t think what to say. He didn’t feel himself and he didn’t like it one little bit. This being in love, if that’s what you could call it, was making him clumsy, stupid and well - _needy_.

“Nope.” He forced a smile. “Guess it just dawned on me that I need to take this stuff more seriously if I really want to make captain.”

McCoy folded his arms and frowned for the first time since he’d sat down. It had been at least ten minutes without a grimace or eye roll.

Shit what if McCoy had fallen for the engineer geek?

Kirk slumped slightly in his chair.

“I’m gonna get dessert. Fancy some pie?” Kirk stood up.

McCoy shook his head. “Nah, I need to give my system a break after the excesses of the past few days.” Kirk sat back down. “You get one though.” McCoy smiled.

Kirk shook his head. “Maybe I oughta do the same.”

“You’re not yourself today, kid. Want me to get my medical kit out, give you a once over?”

Kirk dug his nails into his thighs. Did the bastard even know what he was saying? A _once over_? Yeah - on his hands and knees - that'd fix him.

 

  
**Part 5  
Mind and Body  
Or  
Just Do It! **   


**November 2255  
1.**  
McCoy was well aware that he thought too much and too loud.

It dawned on him that he loved those qualities in Jim that he didn’t possess himself. For one, Jim never failed to _decide_ ; he knew what to do, and then he had the good grace to _believe_ he’d done the right thing.

McCoy, on the other hand, prevaricated, went one way then the other, and doubted some. On those occasions when he _was_ sure he'd done the right thing, he'd go and spoil it by adding helpings of guilt - big, stomach burning guilt.

 **2.**  
Jocelyn used to call him passive/aggressive. He decided she had a point the first time she threw objects at him; he’d sat and stared, only ducking when his instinct for self-preservation intervened.

She didn’t stop, so he walked out of the room.

"Leo! Just fucking _say_ something!"

The next time she pitched at him, he left the house and walked around the neighborhood.

The perimeter of his exclusion zone grew over the months till he needed his car to escape and he'd come back in the small hours and sleep on the couch.

Then one time, he got a room and never came back.

Sometimes things were beyond his control.

 **3.**  
Like Michael in the alley the other night; that was out of his hands, literally. McCoy hadn’t planned that things would go as they did, but _Jesus_ did he ever need to get off. He hadn’t realized quite how much until the following day; sex made each knot in his back and neck evaporate, like he’d been spread out in the sun. He was so full of smiles, more than one of the interns had given him a wide berth in case he was about to blow.

This went a long way to explaining Kirk’s easy movements. Damn, but sex was good for the limbs.

 **4.**  
It put into perspective how he felt about Jim. In the alley, the sensation of Michael pulling at his foreskin with an eager little mouth seemed more distant than how close he’d felt to Jim a few yards away, fucking that beautiful girl.

McCoy knew it was wrong, but when he’d talked dirty to Michael, the same guy who blew him, who had been kind enough to caress his balls, all the while in his heart it was to Jim he was saying, “Yes, _yes_ , like that –“.

Yes, McCoy may have been a little surprised at how easily he’d submerged his guilt but, being fair to himself, this was all he was going to get of Jim, a mirage shimmering in his head while in reality someone whose name he pretty much struggled to remember blew him. Jim may have been his buddy but as far as _this_ went, it was never going to happen. McCoy was sure that in order to get the little brat’s attention he’d have to grow tits. Jim simply wasn’t into guys by the looks of things.

 **5.**  
The following night, a very eager Michael turned up unannounced on McCoy’s doorstep. Shit. What if Jim should change his mind and call? Michael would just be in the way.

Despite how wrong this was, McCoy’s cock seemed to feel little guilt when Michael took the lead, pushed him to a seated position on the edge of the bed and knelt before him licking his lips. McCoy couldn’t have argued with that, could he? It would have been rude.

 **6.**  
Michael pulled McCoy’s cock out of his pants with one deft movement and took a moment to admire it.

Wondering what was going on in Michael’s head, McCoy looked down at himself. Was his a cock to admire? He’d seen plenty in his time as a doctor, in the showers in high school and later at college but none of them had been erect. He’d never thought of a cock as an object of beauty, never responded to the sight of one with lust.

He couldn’t really see what there was to like about his cock or any other. Yet when, despite his good intentions and his renewed promise that _this time_ he would focus on Michael and be present with him in the moment, he didn’t fight the image in his head of _Jim_ looking up at him, the fantasy that these were Jim's lips opening and closing around his shaft. And he _ached to know_ what Jim's cock would look like, feel like and, God help him, taste like.

 **7.**  
McCoy placed his hands gently either side of Michael’s jaw and growled, “Hey, it’s my turn.” Which earned him an, ‘but-I- really- _really_ -like doing this’ face. Nevertheless, Michael let go and stood up to wait for his next instruction.

“Lie on the bed,” McCoy said. He wanted to be able to sit up and have a good look at this cock; he needed to build a 'standard' so that, if ever he did see Kirk’s, he’d have a position on it much as he had on women’s legs or breasts.

 **8.**  
Next he helped Michael remove his pants. After he’d thrown them onto a nearby chair, he went about the task of examining him mentally while fellating him – much as if this were a medical procedure. He memorized the length and girth of Michael’s cock, the way the head sat against his flattened tongue, how much he needed to hollow his cheeks so that he could appease his gag reflex, the pattern of veins and the aesthetic relationship between the balls and everything else.

McCoy wasn’t surprised when, as he became more and more detached, his own erection disappeared.

Like he said, his problem in life, one of the reasons he was such an interminable grouch, was that he thought too damn much. This was a sure fire way of deflating everything, actually and metaphorically.

He had become an observer. This realization really wasn’t going to help him get that erection back.

 

  
**Part 6  
Marxism - one  
Or  
How Can Someone Better Than Me Love Me Back? **   


**November 2255  
1.**  
Jim suspected that people fell in love because they wanted/needed to escape themselves. The beloved offers a flight out of here on the wings of their amazing, awesome personality. He worked on the last read through of his assignment and grinned sardonically as he embellished this ludicrous image of Bones in his mind’s eye. That was why he he’d fallen in love with him. If he could just kiss Bones, just feel his body along his back while he slept at night, he would be somehow transported out of himself. He wouldn’t be alone anymore.

He wasn’t sure if he ached because he wanted this so much or because he knew it wasn’t ever going to happen.

Why couldn’t he be loved by someone like that? Kirk wasn’t given to feeling sorry for himself; since Sam left, he’d become an expert in moving on with ne’er a glance over his shoulder down the dusty track. Now that was a song lyric if ever he heard one! He put down the PADD and stretched out on his bed.

 _The beloved offers a free ticket out of town_ , he repeated to himself. The academy provided a structure he hadn’t experienced since his fleeting appearances in high school, but Kirk still didn’t feel part of things. He recognized that he lacked security, and a feeling of belonging. Nothing new there.

Sex was plentiful but there was no love. He still wasn’t sure why this bothered him and what he stood to gain from being loved. Did he even need transporting out of himself when he didn’t doubt his abilities nor his vision?

But shit, he really wanted Bones. It wasn’t just lust – he was sure of that. If it had been, he’d followed his needs and done something about it. What was the pull of this grouchy bastard? Was it that Bones was inadvertently putting up a fight? And Jim loved a fight; he knew that much about himself.

 **2.**  
At the same time, he wasn’t surprised that Bones wouldn’t want him like that. Really, had the guy even looked at himself in the mirror lately? Bones could have had the pick of the campus so why would he want Kirk? McCoy didn’t strike him as someone who would pick the immediately obvious, the easiest option. In other words, him. And, in a way, that’s why Kirk liked him. He rubbed the space between his eyebrows. Shit, if McCoy was attracted to him, he’d almost lose respect for him.

 **3.**  
Kirk knew there was a quote from Marx. He looked it up quickly on the PADD and smiled ruefully. _Groucho_ Marx – not Karl.

 _"I wouldn't want to belong to a club that allows members like me.”_

Well Kirk hadn’t exactly been picked yet but it pretty much summed up how he felt.

 **4.**  
Unrequited love. “You asshole.” He said to the empty room.

There were only two ways of dealing with this – sex or the gym. It was 2pm so he searched for his sweats.

 

  
**Marxism – two  
Balancing self-love and self-hatred**   


**1.**  
McCoy stood in the shower thinking about Jim till the water turned cold. Thinking about how vital and positive he was and what a pathetic figure he, Leonard McCoy, cut. How could someone like that ever want someone like him?

 **2.**  
But, if someone like that did want someone like him, would it fix him, heal the damage from years of anger and disconnect? Would they somehow complement each other? What effect would Jim have on him – would he give McCoy that spark he’d lost with all the Jocelyn bullshit? Was it even fair to think along these lines? Kirk was just 22 for God’s sake. Did this make McCoy a vampire – wanting to be with someone to bleed them like this? Jesus, he was an intelligent man – what the fuck was going on with him? Then he was reminded of a quote by Marcel Proust:

 _People who are not in love fail to understand how an intelligent man can suffer because of a very ordinary woman. This is like being surprised that anyone should be stricken with cholera because of a creature so insignificant as the comma bacillus._

Well, he couldn’t help how he felt. He’d been infected. It was beyond his control.

Having Neil Young playing in the room didn’t fucking help his mood at all.

 **3.**  
He toweled himself dry and lay naked on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Why would someone as incredible as James Tiberius Kirk want a fucked up divorcee like him? To be honest, if he _did_ , McCoy would have to question the genius label.

 **4.**  
He could call him. Maybe he should go for broke.

No, an evening of Bourbon and more work on preparing classes – then he wouldn’t even have time to think about his cock. First, he was going to eat something. Still naked, he looked in the refrigerator. Cheese and peanut butter. He cut a slice, picked up the jar and took it along with a spoon to his desk.

He dug the spoon in, licked it thoroughly and then had another.

“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love,” he wrote on his PADD, quoting the great, 20C philosopher, Charlie Brown. Then he deleted it.

He’d have to be dead to lose the taste of bourbon, he grinned, pouring a glass then tucking the bottle under his chair.

Work. Fuck this shit. But first, change the music, Godammit.

 

  
**Part 7  
False Notes  
Or  
You Aren’t Going Out in That Are You? **   


**December, 2255, (and 2250)  
1\. **  
Sometimes, McCoy watched Kirk sleep on his couch after a particularly heavy night’s drinking, and he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he’d known him _before_ they’d met on the shuttle ride. As the romantic notion goes, (and McCoy couldn’t think it without an eye roll), it was as if they’d been separated in a previous life - hence this intense attraction, this _need_ to be with him. It was like they were two broken, separated halves; then it was inevitable that they should eventually find each other and regain their strength once they joined.

Since McCoy neither believed in previous lives nor in destiny, he was the first to swat himself upside the head for such a foolish notion.

Yet…he did wonder what would happen if he spooned Jim. Would they fit together like the yin and yang symbol? And would he have time to even enjoy this before he got himself a black eye?

 **2.**  
They’d spent Thanksgiving apart. Kirk had visited with Pike’s family and he’d stayed and worked double shifts. McCoy had barely slept.

 **3.**  
When Kirk returned, McCoy had felt somehow annoyingly complete as soon as he cast eyes on Kirk’s sandy hair and plump lips.

With the faintest of flushes to his ears, McCoy accepted a one armed hug; it was the cue for a return into what had become their routine.

Despite over-crammed and over-scheduled lives, they nevertheless went out drinking a couple of nights a week, once to play pool, which McCoy found testing, (all the leaning over tables and butts in the air making him inwardly groan), once somewhere noisier. Sometimes Kirk would leave with a girl, sometimes he wouldn’t.

Other evenings, they’d share beers back at McCoy’s room while they studied. Out of the corner of his eye, McCoy would watch how a restless Kirk went through his routine: he speed read and then paced about; stood at the window; took a slash; allowed his reading to sink in only to return to his PADD for the next globule of information. He knew Kirk only needed to read something once and it was filed away permanently. No problems with memory loss. That is, until you asked him about home.

“What was he like? Frank? Oh…you know, just a jerk, I guess…can’t really remember, I used to go out a lot. Better things to do than make nice with him.” Kirk punctuated the statement with a leer which McCoy knew by now was deflection. Look at my lips, leave my brain the fuck alone. He also knew the leer wasn’t aimed at him, its purpose was to intimate that Kirk had better things on his mind and no need to think about some guy his mom hooked up with. So McCoy left it alone.

Things were perfect as they were and McCoy didn’t want anything to spoil that - least of all the fact that he had these fucking _feelings_.

 **4.**  
Finally, McCoy told himself as he watched Kirk at the pool table, he’d met someone who shared the same world views as he did. They were like brothers the way they bitched and snarked about the professors, found the same students to be jerks. They voted the same, loved the same movies, hell, they even found the same girls attractive. McCoy pushed aside the thought that brothers, especially in movies and the bible, often ended up killing each other; it was just he couldn’t think of another way to describe their _pairing_ that didn’t make his groin twitch. Like now, the way Kirk leaned across the table, his t riding up to expose the small of his back. Holy fuck. McCoy looked away.

 **5.**  
He should have known by now, having fallen in love before, this never went well. He thought back to Jocelyn, during the period of time he couldn’t keep his hands off her, like the day she bought those new shoes.

 _“Don’t you like them, Leo?” she walked up and down the lounge floor, sashaying as best she could even thought she wasn’t a sashaying kind of girl and that’s one of the reasons he’d found her perfect._

 _He grunted._

 _“What kind of fool answer is that?”_

 _“I’m a doctor, not a fashinista,” he grumbled._

 _If she hadn’t have loved her new shoes so much, he’d have probably received one right between the eyes. The question nagged him, how could she love those shoes and love him at the same time?_

 _“I think_ you’re _beautiful,” he drawled. And he had._

His eyes raked up and down Kirk’s body and he wondered if the day would come when he would hate Jim like he hated Jocelyn.

“Hey Bones, fancy a game?”

“What, you take me for, an idiot? I’m fine watching.”

 **6.**  
When Kirk got his coat, McCoy tried not to dwell on the sight of him struggling into it, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed, his t rode up again, this time providing a fleeting glimpse of belly, how his hands, such beautiful hands, took the zip up to his neck, guarding against the December cold outside.

McCoy decided he didn’t want to find out too much about Jim after all - in case he stopped being perfect. Then he’d fall out of love with him; and while being in love with Jim pissed him off royally, the thought of it ending, well – what would be left of their friendship?

Yet he knew falling out of love was inevitable, and as far out of his control as that moment his heart lurched towards Jim in the shuttle; as Jorge Luis Borges said:

 _To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god._

McCoy felt a warmth in his belly and a hunger in his cock as he scowled at Jim who shook his shoulders against the cold, who winked at him amicably. McCoy watched Jim’s breath as it left his nostrils and mouth in a mist and he couldn’t imagine this lasting; best enjoy it while he could.

 

CONTINUED in next part!


	3. parts 8-13 (of 24)

**Autopsy of the Heart – parts 8-13 (of 24)**  


 **Part 8  
Love or Liberalism  
Or  
I’m Going to Change You for Your Own Good**

 **January 2256 ( _2233_ )   
1\. **  
Kirk remembers Winona and Frank’s first fight. It was over something as stupid as a dress.

 _She’d dressed up for a party, and she came down the stairs super slow for full effect. This was an entrance._

 _His ten year old self lay sprawled on the couch, watching TV, the dog on the floor and his hand playing with its ears. Frank sat in the armchair reading the sports pages._

 _“Well?” she said._

 _Both of them looked up; she was trying not to smile. Kirk remembers sitting up, and saying, “Wow!” because that’s what his mum wanted but the fact that his mum’s boobs were hanging out made him feel embarrassed._

 _“If you think you’re leaving the house dressed like that…” Frank grumbled and then he was back reading the paper._

 _Kirk couldn’t look at his mum’s face. He couldn’t look at her at all._

 _He turned up the TV to blot out the conversation, the same conversation he’d later hear acted out with different words in bars he’d eventually work in, in restaurants he’d bus, in fuel stations as he re-energized power cells, and that he vowed he would never, ever have._

 _Even aged ten he wanted to know when things had changed between Frank and his Mom; how had they ended up arguing like this over a dress? It wasn’t so long ago he had to knock before entering the TV room. He was glad that was over at least; he’d missed his couch._

 **2.**  
 _“But the party's tonight, Frank!”_

 _“Wear a different dress.” His step-dad's voice was flat, like he spoke to the dog when he meant business._

 _“I don’t have a different dress. Frank. This is it. Hey, don’t you think I look pretty in this dress?”_

 _Of course she had different dresses. They both (the three of them) knew that._

 _“You always look pretty. You look pretty without exposing yourself. I don’t want everyone at the party ogling you. I’ll look like a jerk!”_

 _“So you don’t like my dress? You think I look ugly in it?”_

 _Jim slipped out and, from his room, he heard chairs moving about, doors slamming, voices rising and falling, the TV still blaring in the corner and the occasional bark from the dog._

 _“Win, you aren’t leaving the fucking house in that dress. I won’t be seen near you like that.”_

 _Ok, so her boobs were kinda embarrassing but young Kirk knew his step-dad was being harsh._

 _“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. It’s the 23rd century for Chrissakes.”_

 _“You’re my wife, dammit.”_

 _“You don’t own me.”_

 _“No, I don’t. But if I did, you wouldn’t dress like a slut.”_

 _Jim lay on his bed, crying silently, listening. His mother, who worked for Starfleet, reduced to this._

 _“I can’t believe you called me a slut.”_

 _“I said you_ dressed like one _, I didn’t say you were one." Frank’s voice dropped; Kirk didn't need to be able to hear what was happening now. He was able to fill in the blanks. Frank probably had his arms around his mom and was saying something like, "It’s because I love you, hon, I don’t want people to think bad things about you.”_

Because _of love._

 _He knew they were making up on the couch then, because he heard the dog being shooed out of the living room._

 **3.**  
It seemed pretty straightforward to Kirk. If people loved you, if people _hated_ you, they took away your freedom.

It was as if they had this picture in their heads of what someone was _supposed_ to be like and then another picture what they were _actually_ like and they tugged one image over the other. Whether you liked it or not.

It didn't even seem confined to romantic love. Parents did this to their kids, sibling to sibling, but worst of all was what happened between lovers.

How much better his way, Jim’s way. The way he fucked, the way he was a friend, was to celebrate the person he hung out with _fully_ for what they were. None of this bullshit about I wish you were this and I wish you were that. Or he'd be as bad as everyone else.

And if there was one value Kirk upheld above all others, was that of respecting freedom.

 **4.**  
Arguments like those between lovers never happen between friends, Kirk decided. Friends just don’t cross that line, do they?

 **5.**  
“What do you think of the mission, Bones?”

McCoy took a step back from fixing Kirk’s cheek.

“Don’t tell me this fight was about higher things for once?”

“Don't get excited - it was about the usual stuff, some asshole getting into my space - but Bones, do you ever wonder if what Starfleet is doing is _right_? I mean, they talk about loving freedom and defending the rights of member planets but, you know, what if none of it’s any of our business?”

“And you decide nearly five months into your program that this might be a waste of time? Jesus, Jim.”

“No, I haven’t decided anything, Bones, don’t fucking panic, ok? I’m just asking questions. Or have you forgotten what it means to exercise our basic human rights?”

“I’m a doctor not a philosopher, Jim. And if you imply again that I don’t respect human rights, I’m gonna zap you.” He indicated the tray of hypos behind him.

“We’re _peacekeepers_ Bones.”

“Why are you worrying about this stuff, Jim?” McCoy pulled up a chair.

“ _If_ I’m going to be a captain – “

“ _When_ you’re a captain…”

“I have to know I’m right.”

McCoy snorted. “The day you doubt if you’re right will be the day the sun freezes over, Jim.”

“But it’s when people, federations, think they’re right that…they abuse, don’t they?”

“Jim, I don’t understand-”

Sure… Bones hadn’t seen the things he’d seen. He hadn’t seen what people could do in the name of ‘this is right’.

 **5.**  
“Holy shit, Bones, what the fuck are those?”

Bones glanced down at his feet and waggled his socked toes.

“They were a present from Joanna, and because it’s my birthday I’m damn well wearing them.”

Dr Seus socks. Grinch socks. Even though Christmas was long past - how apt.

“But – “Jim began.

McCoy raised an eyebrow and folded his arms.

Kirk remembered the prime directive, shrugged and said, “Come on, handsome, lets go!”

“And for the record, you evah call me handsom’ again, I’ll make you eat these socks. _After_ I’ve worn them for a week.”

Hmm…he always went super southern when Kirk got to him, but the irritation, Kirk observed while he waited for his friend to put on his shoes, was defused by a nice helping of humor.

Kirk realized that while Frank and his Mom had had sexual chemistry in spades, what had gone missing between them pretty damn quick were the jokes.

In the cab, McCoy stretched out long legs, teased up his pants and rotated an ankle.

Kirk groaned dramatically.

This may have been the point that he realized that he could no more stop loving Bones than he could imprison him. Feeling this had become part of his chemistry and he had no control; it had become part of his nature. Well, he might not be able to control his feelings, fine. He could control what he did. What he couldn’t do was control other people.

He could smell McCoy sitting close, but not touching, in the cab; consciously Kirk inhaled the smell of toothpaste, cigarette smoke on his jacket from when they’d been chatting to one of the cadets while they’d waited for a cab, the faintest smell of shampoo in his hair. He knew what his skin smelled like from times he’d leant close and McCoy had half-carried him home. He’d never been as drunk as he’d looked.

Even if (tribbles could fly) McCoy _did_ love him, (which he didn’t), how could he be sure that he’d have the same enlightened views as himself? Did Bones respect freedom as much as he did? Had Bones tried to change Jocelyn? Was that why it had all gone wrong?

"I hate to say this, Jim, and actually agree with you, but these socks _are_ something else."

"I was right,” Jim nodded. “Like you said, I’m always sure.”

"You had my own best interests at heart, I know." McCoy squeezed his arm.

Despite McCoy's grin, Kirk felt a chill at his heart.

This love nonsense - nothing but trouble...

 

 **Part 9  
Beauty  
Or  
League Tables **

**January 2256  
1\. **  
Kirk wondered if he loved McCoy _because_ he was beautiful, or had McCoy _become_ beautiful because he loved him?

It pissed Jim off that he was even thinking this stuff still, but while he had no control over his heart, he could still use his brain - he just had to understand.

So he went over it again and again; why did this particular face, those particular hazel eyes and those particular lips drive him crazy? When he considered how many pairs of eyes he’d got up close and personal with, how many lips he’d kissed and been kissed by, he wondered why _this_ man, _this_ face?

 **2.**  
It made it worse that McCoy had no idea that he was beautiful - at least as far as Kirk could tell without directly asking him. With women, there were clues about this his mom, for example, had often grumbled at her reflection when she dressed to go out. This was his experience of women other than in bed; despite the number of women he had slept with, he'd seen barely any getting ready to go out, maybe just dressing to leave, 'after'. How could you tell if someone thought they were attractive or not? How much of the swagger and the preening was cover up and how much was real? If they wanted to fuck you, did that mean they thought they were gorgeous or that you were?

McCoy, was harder to read than women, and harder to read than most guys. Sure he _appeared_ to wear his heart on his sleeve, but Kirk was convinced that the permanent grouchiness was deflection. Plus the sourness was evidence (if the recent liaison with Michael were anything to go by) that he wasn't getting laid anywhere near enough.

 **3.**  
Kirk knew people, knew how to read them. But what he'd come to realize since he’d met Bones, was that, as often as not, he went on guts and instinct, and when it came to hard evidence and having to prove why he believed something to be true about someone, it wasn’t so straightforward. He might be able to read what people needed in bed; what their intent was in fights and confrontations but, in matters of love, he didn’t have a fucking clue. Sex yes. Love no.

 **4.**  
When Kirk looked in the mirror, he _knew_ he looked good; he knew which cards he held and how to turn them to his advantage.

Yet, he couldn’t be sure what Bones thought when he looked at himself. He suspected that if anyone had ever dared tell Bones he was attractive, let alone ‘beautiful’, he’d have spluttered, he’d have cursed. Hell, he might even have blushed. Above all, he would have been surprised.

The fact that Leonard McCoy showed no signs that he knew how beautiful he was made Kirk ache with love for him even more.

 **6.**  
He also knew that McCoy would have had no such ego problems when it came to his abilities as a doctor. Bones never tired of telling him, or anyone else who he came across, how damned good he was.

Still...he must have _some_ idea he was handsome as hell...?

After all, Kirk thought as he watched McCoy run his tricorder over another patient in ER, his friend was _classically_ good looking.

Which meant he measured up against some kind of ideal. If you got all the good-looking men who were about 6ft tall, with dark hair, similar build, and with hazel eyes and put them in a police line-up with the most beautiful at one end and least beautiful at the other, where would Bones sit on that continuum? How would he measure up against the platonic ideal?

 **7.**  
“Jim, is this really important? I’ve got a lot to do here.”

And that voice. Do voices, accents, take their place on league tables too?

“I’ll stick around, old man. Just need you to look at my eye. Or you could pass me the dermal regenerator and I’ll do it myself. Seen you do it enough times…”

“That would be unethical,” was the gruff reply.

McCoy’s patient winced as he hypoed him.

“There, that should do it and next time you drink, avoid piss strewn alleys and you might manage to stay upright and not break your damned skull open.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

Kirk grinned. Beautiful, see?

 **8.**  
He couldn’t very well stare at McCoy’s face while he was treating him, but when his friend leaned in towards Jim; Jim could feel his breath on his cheek and it made him hot and bothered.

“Stop fidgeting, you five year old.”

When McCoy glanced away to write something on his PADD, Kirk took the opportunity to have a direct look at him.

He was sure that this particular width of lip could only be described as perfectly beautiful. By him at least.

 **9.**  
He felt a surge of happiness to be so close to this man, as friends and even now in this formal physicality.

Shit - he looked even more amazing now Kirk was doused in this unexpected emotion, and he over-rode a desire to giggle.

“Shit, Bones, what was in that hypo?”

“Pain-killer, Jim. Might make you feel a bit strange.”

“No kidding.”

 **10.**  
Kirk stretched out on the biobed.

“You can’t sleep here!”

McCoy’s top-of-the-league face looked over him, all olive skin, dark eyebrows, full lips and grouch.

“Sorry. Tired.”

Jim stared at his friend’s upper lip. Maybe it was a bit thin. And he had that slightly crooked tooth on the bottom row, in the middle. So he wasn’t perfect after all.

As Kirk swung his legs back onto the floor, he realized, with irritation, that these 'flaws' only served to make his friend sit closer to the ideal.

 **11.**  
His imagination could play with these small details that no one else would know about. It was his secret. If the day came that he might kiss Bones, he’d run his tongue along that upper lip possessively, knowingly, lovingly.

 **12.**  
“Let yourself in so I can check on you when I get back. And don’t drink anything – it’ll affect the drugs I’ve given you. You look pretty spaced out. You be ok walking home?”

“K, Bones.”

The cold of the fog hit him hard when he left the hospital. He'd said 'home'.

"Fuck, Jim -" Kirk accused himself out loud once he was out of earshot, "you are now officially a girl."

He’d settle for blaming the drugs for the light-headed feeling.

 **Part 10  
Speaking Love  
Or  
Wild Horses Wouldn’t Drag it Out of Me**

 **On any number of evenings in 2256  
1\. **  
Professor Spock had been romantically entangled with Cadet Uhura for almost a year now. Their relationship had, by necessity, been discreet. They both knew that favoritism would be an easy accusation, especially with Uhura being such a star pupil.

There was also the question of the cross species relationship which, Spock had learned, brought out the worst in people, as witnessed in his own childhood on Vulcan.

And finally, there was the question of the future. It might be illogical to become too attached when they might be, almost inevitably _would_ be, separated once they had been assigned to starships.

 **2.**  
It was her birthday. He'd bought her a card because he had observed this was a tradition among humans, and he'd learned quickly to cease pointing out how illogical their customs were. In Nyota’s case, if he’d forgotten something like this, she might have made an unseemly display of emotion that he would have found…difficult. Yet, as his hand hovered to sign it, again illogical, for whom else would it be from if he was the one to hand it to her?

He had never told her what his feelings were towards her.

 **3.**  
Love was an emotion that ran very deep with Vulcans, but Spock controlled this emotion as effectively as he did all his others, with meditation and Uhura knew that he would not allow any outward manifestation of it.

He knew from his observation of humans on their own planet that love could be the key to unlocking Pandora’s box - an Earth myth which he found fascinating. If you let love 'out', other emotions such as jealousy, anger, lust followed behind.

 **4.**  
After all, communication, verbal and non-verbal, was Nyota’s genius. She knew of his regard, and it would be illogical to tell her something she already knew.

 **5.**  
Yet humans are an illogical, emotional species. He considered that Nyota might wish that he told her he loved her. In words. But if this was the case, would she not ask him directly?

 **6.**  
In a society where there is so much romantic literature, where gossip about who loves or desires whom is the fabric of the airways and popular news, where every other song overheard is about falling in love, falling out of love, never finding love or unrequited love, how could he, an alien, a Vulcan express in the words, ‘I love you’ the same meaning a human would? Indeed, there was no logical reason for him to do so. He also found the idea of doing so intensely uncomfortable. Yet, while he and Nyota were compatible and she knew from their melds that he held her in high regard, as a non-telepath, as a human, she had grown up in a culture where expressing ‘love’ was expected. Expressing it once, he'd observed, did not suffice. Humans sought reassurance on a regular basis that they were loved. He found this illogical but humans were illogical.

Indeed, how could Spock guarantee that in between leaving his mouth and being received by her brain, the words intended by him to mean loyalty, to express care, sexual desire and a life long bond, might not somehow change to mean something else? While this was true of all communication, how much more likely between two alien cultures.

 **7.**  
Spock met Uhura in a restaurant on the far side of San Francisco where they were sure no one would see them. It was what humans would call ‘romantic’; candles (which Spock thought were dangerous and gave a 10% chance of the evening ending in flight from a conflagration), checked table clothes and Italian food. He knew, from his research, it had a high vegetarian choice, but he was apprehensive about the quantity of garlic used in the dishes.

Nevertheless, he thought, as he pulled out Nyota’s chair - another custom he’d learned was easier to adopt than question - if he could control his emotions, controlling his reaction to rebellious taste buds would hardly be a challenge.

 **8.**  
They ate in silence. A unique aspect of their relationship was that Nyota, forever surrounded by the Babel of many tongues and languages, often preferred silence and simple communication through touch. He had, with her permission, entered her mind many times so he often knew what she wanted to say and there was no need.

He knew she loved him, he’d seen it in her thoughts. And so she knew he loved her.

But he’d never said it.

 **11.**  
“This time last year I didn’t even know you.” She was smiling; her dark eyes glowed in the candle light, her chocolate skin shone in the warm light. She’d had two glasses of wine and Spock observed with a raised eyebrow that it was as if some of the bones in her spine had been removed.

“I am pleased I know you, Nyota.”

His voice was even but he hoped she understood the depth of that statement. He was reminded of how inadequate mere words were for humans. Adequate certainly for explaining processes and carrying information, but for bearing the import of compatibility, sexual desire – words failed time and time again. Humans resorted to action, sex, violence to express how they felt.

“I’m pleased you’re pleased.” She said. “Spock, I –“

"Yes?” He un-steepled his hands and leaned across to take hers, the one not gripping the wine glass stem. “Do you desire more wine?”

“For a communications expert, I’m finding it hard to express myself… I want to say…” a little giggle.

“That you…” he drew a heart in the air between them, his face he knew would be impassive but he detected a rise in his heart-rate. “…me.” He finished.

The 'picture' served to communicate how he felt more efficiently than a word. It showed the organ that romantic humans believed the feeling of love originated from. He on the other hand, knew it came from the primal need of all living beings to mate and reproduce, and while logic and science had their appeal, Spock understood his human side well enough not to mention that here and ruin the moment of closeness.

“Yes, Spock. That’s what I-“and their fingertips touched, enough for them to close their eyes and Spock knew that Uhura had remembered that words weren’t necessary.

 

 **Part 11  
What Do You See in Her/Him?  
Or  
If You Are Dying of Thirst You'll See an Oasis**

  
 **March 2256  
1\. **  
Sulu was a year ahead of Kirk officially but in the same year of study since the object of his affection was being fast-tracked.

He received comms from his brother on a regular basis.

 _I haven’t heard from you in a while, Hik. Some woman keeping you busy? ; D_

No. I still don't like women. And it’s none of your business.

 _I’m your brother._

Sulu waited for the inevitable question.

 _What’s he like?_

I said, none of your business…. You going to Auntie’s on Sunday?

 _Try and stop me! And don’t think I’m letting you get away with this, k?_

 **2.**  
So, what _was_ he like? What did he see in Kirk?

He cast his mind back to the evening before when he’d stood next to Kirk at the bar. They had progressed to nodding terms which, on Kirk’s part, also often included a genuine and brilliant smile.

He’d watched Kirk out of the corner of his eye. He loved the way he stood at the bar, up on his toes to attract the bartender’s attention. He took an erotic delight in watching him slide his credit chip towards the barman for payment.

What did he like about James Kirk?

Everything.

 **3.**  
Sulu fancied himself as a bit of philosopher. He thought about beauty a great deal and he thought about it broadly.

It would have been so easy to find beauty in Jim’s eyes, his black rimmed blue eyes, in his pale lips which he couldn’t seem to stop licking as if he was taunting those who couldn’t but, how much more testing and satisfying to find beauty in those things that others might not have spotted: the way he crossed his legs when he sat at a table opposite McCoy; the way his sleeve fell open at the wrist to reveal the perfect combination of veins disappearing out of sight; the intonation of his laugh...

 **4.**  
Sulu saw the beauty in his plants, of course, but in all of them, not just the showy ones, and he took pleasure in nurturing the plainer specimens with as much love and care as any beauty.

 **5.**  
Sulu also appreciated that he saw the beauty in activity. Part of the appeal of fencing was the range and speed of movement, balletic, masculine and feminine at once. His second greatest desire was that one day he could teach Kirk how to fence.

 **6.**  
Sulu knew that his ability to enjoy beauty in so many different ways was borne of love. He doubted that someone who didn’t love plants would notice the beauty in a plumorisinia’s tentacle. In the same way, only someone who loved Jim could find the faint scars on his face from teenage acne utterly gorgeous.

 **7.**  
Sometimes, when Sulu felt himself blush as Kirk approached, he wondered if his fascination with this incredible man might be a bit odd.

What if his interest had slipped from love to obsession, from fact to fantasy?

Something told him that the test of this would be, was he prepared to tell anyone else what he liked about Kirk?

 **8.**  
For Sulu, love was something that he would have to do on his own. He knew it was pointless telling his brother what it was that he saw in Kirk. His brother hadn’t asked him what Kirk was like, but what he liked _about_ him. It was his subjective viewpoint that he was after. And he wasn’t going to get it.

 **9.**  
Sulu watched Kirk nursing his beer, reading his PADD, and he wondered if indeed he was suffering from madness. Perhaps it wasn’t ‘Kirk the man’ he loved, but merely the _idea_ of him that he saw clustered around his shirtsleeves and heard in his laugh. Perhaps those lips were not the most perfect lips after all. He just wanted to believe that they were.

This ordinary man, sitting at a bar table, stylus in hand, wasn’t writing creative poetry; he simply bore the face of a poet while learning basic Klingon.

Walking through a barren desert, so in need of love, so _thirsty_ for it, Sulu, a man who truly was driven by love in all the things he did, had needed a drink so badly that he'd created an oasis called James Kirk.

 

 **Part 12  
Skeptism and Faith  
Or  
Don’t Burst the Bubble**

  
 **March 2256  
1\. **  
McCoy was a doctor, not a pilgrim. He believed in what he could see, measure, test and prove. He thought about this one morning when he woke up with a brazen erection, fully dressed on his bed next to James T Kirk. There was an imaginary force-field between them and his back ached from the effort of not bumping into Jim all night.

 **2.**  
But of late, he had also become a philosopher. He thought about the difference between appearance and reality. _I think I see Jim lying on my bed_. He said to himself. _He could be an optical illusion._ He tried again, and breathed deeply to stop himself laughing at where his mind was going - _I could have an erection. It could be an optical illusion_. Of course it was ridiculous, it was easy to doubt the existence of something like a table, a chair, a man in your bed, a torpedo in your pants.

 **3.**  
It wasn’t so easy to doubt the existence of his love.

 **4.**  
If he began to doubt, to test and to look for evidence here, where would he be then?

You had to believe to be in love. To have faith.

“Jim?” he whispered.

No answer.

Bones eased his pants open, taking care not to rock the bed too much in case he woke Kirk up.

 _I think I see Jim lying on my bed_. He said in his head. He straightened his cock out, keeping it concealed by his shirt. He’d have to be careful, just roll the end around between his fingers and thumb, didn’t need to jerk off completely. He could do that later in the bathroom. For now, he just wanted to indulge his belief in love. For the moment it didn’t matter whether Jim was really there or not.

What mattered was how he felt.

 **5.**  
Thing is, he couldn’t understand how he’d come to feel like this so soon, so hard and so inconveniently, dammit. He looked at Jim and squeezed the end of his cock and felt a bit creepy at the same time and with some difficulty tucked himself back into his pants. It was hormones, chemistry, chemicals…he needed to break this down, measure it, test it, _understand_ it.

 **6.**  
It made no sense, yet he was in love. McCoy didn’t doubt it, he just didn’t understand it. The way he felt was as real as the man lying on his bed now snoring, making his heart ache and his cock taunt him.

 

 **Part 13  
Intimacy  
Or  
You Could Have Your Own Drawer**

  
 **March 2256  
1\. **  
“You’ve got so much of your shit lying around here; you might as well move in, Jim.”

“No thanks.”

“But if you’re here all the time, why not…?“ Shit, did he really very nearly say _make it official_? McCoy didn’t manage to finish the question.

“I like living alone.”

“How you gonna cope in a tin can, in space _surrounded_ by hundreds of crew members, you moron?”

Kirk opened his eyes wide and scooted his stool closer to McCoy.

“By keeping my own room.”

 **2.**  
That night, McCoy made a mental list of Jim’s possessions scattered around his room, noting each new item with a finger on his hand.

a) one of Jim’s PADDS under the bed (left thumb)  
b) Jim’s toothbrush in the bathroom (left index finger)  
c) Half a dozen movies and a shitload of music which Jim owned but had somehow found their way into his PADD. Did hacking in count as someone leaving their stuff lying around?   
d) Jim’s t-shirt under his pillow - maybe that didn’t really count because he’d stolen that and put it there himself. Still there were at least a dozen items regularly came back from his laundry that were Jim’s. And he was counting pairs of socks as one damned item.

His comm. beeped.

 _McCoy, is Jim there?_ From Pike.

 _No he fucking isn’t. Am I his keeper? I’ll tell him you were looking for him._

He deleted the parts of the message that would have had him court-martialed and hit send. _No he isn’t. I’ll tell him you were looking for him._

Surely that counted as item e) on his list? Jim left his _presence_ around too. People expected him to be in McCoy’s room when he wasn’t alone in his own.

f) There was Jim’s comm in McCoy’s jeans on the chair! Jim had handed it to him the night before for safe keeping. It was bleeping like a mutha with missed messages and calls. McCoy turned it off. Serve him right for not agreeing to move in and make life easier for everyone concerned. (Right thumb).

 **3.**  
McCoy's intimate knowledge about Kirk also extended to the contents of his backpack. He knew by now that if Kirk had it with him, it would mean he was planning to spend the night.

He couldn't help peeking at what was inside when Jim had left it open on the bed once: that looked like a spare t shirt; some socks; he couldn’t be certain, but he was sure Kirk wouldn’t stress about whether or not he’d packed underpants since he was pretty laissez faire about the whole underwear thing.

He noticed that Jim always had the watermelon-flavored lip salve McCoy had bought him on account of his frequently chapped lips. McCoy had slipped it into his bag when Jim was in the shower one morning. Jim would slick his lips just before he slung the back pack over his shoulder and left for his classes. They never mentioned it but it was a little act of intimacy that…well, just developed from their close friendship. How could they talk of it? This wasn't standard medical supplies; the presence of the lip balm was evidence of McCoy at some point standing in a store, _deliberating_ , thinking about what Jim would like and then buying the stuff.

 **4.**  
Habits began to seep into each other’s behavior too.  
• Kirk now drank Kentucky Whiskey first choice.  
• McCoy’s diet had become less healthy – meat and potatoes being his friend’s preferred food if left to his own devices.  
• McCoy sometimes went commando – it was his little secret.  
• Kirk had taken to saying 'dammit' and 'I’ll whoop your ass'.  
• McCoy had taken to smiling more.

McCoy wondered, sardonically, if Kirk had adopted his doctor friend’s new habit of jerking off every chance he got.

 **5.**   
Intimacy brought information, detail and lack of self-consciousness:  
• Kirk wondered around naked, it seemed, all the time.   
• McCoy learned his friend was circumcised.   
• He learned that Kirk loved to floss.   
• He also always took his PADD to the bathroom with him in the morning as well as a cup of coffee.

He knew what Kirk looked like before he sneezed, the exact angle at which he threw his head back when he laughed, how he ate all his meat, then his vegetables separately, how he smelled when he came out of the shower, how he cleaned his nails meticulously with a brush. How kind he was to new cadets.

 **6.**  
McCoy tried to put himself in his friend’s shoes and imagine what Kirk might have found out about him. He’d certainly told him all about his break up with Jocelyn. He knew about Joanna. No other cadet or doctor he worked with knew any of that. This was more of an 'exposure' and required more trust than Kirk wiping his ass in front of him.

 **7.**  
Their first act of intimacy had been for Kirk to rename McCoy and for McCoy to allow it.

Sometimes McCoy would call him _Captain_ , but this was teasing, not a pet name. He had yet to find a term of endearment that fitted, and McCoy realized that intimacy was a two way street.

 **8.**  
Intimacy gives license to ungracious, gossipy, spiteful talk. About others. About those who are not in your gang of two.

So McCoy could vent about who he hated at the hospital, and who got on his _fucking_ nerves, and who he wished he could stick which medical implement up.

In his turn, Kirk, who McCoy was the first to admit didn’t have a spiteful bone in his body, grumbled about professors, Uhura turning him down, the Kobayashi Ma and the pointlessness of the tests he had to endure.

 **9.**  
They were bonded by the many experiences that they’d had together, the memories that they shared with each other.

Such as the night they came back from a bar and found one of the cadets had been mugged for his comm in San Francisco. Kirk had called security, McCoy had patched him up. Kirk was the one who put his arm round him and walked him back to his room so the guy could sleep easy.

There was the time they found the stray dog on the beach and Kirk had rolled around in the sand with it, throwing sticks while Bones stretched out and watched, his heart thick with feeling for this incredible creature, the object of his love.

These incidents cemented their friendship and McCoy wondered what other memories and experiences they would share if they ever made it to the same Starship.

 **10.**  
And they developed some language, some words of their own, ways of suggesting shall we go for a drink, apologizing, for Kirk to tell McCoy he needed to leave the bar with someone and he should make his own way home tonight. Shared, private and unique to their relationship.

Whatever that relationship was, he hadn't quite found a word that adequately defined it.

 **11.**  
“Jim, do you like fishing?”

“No.”

Silence.

“Why do you ask?” Jim said, searching under McCoy’s bed for his sneakers.

“Dunno, I thought maybe we could go home for Spring break. Do some fishin’…”

“You could teach me!” Jim was all wide eyed and innocent.

McCoy fought the impulse to somersault onto the bed. “Idiot,” he growled, “I’ll book somewhere. If I leave to you it’ll never happen.”

Or if he left it entirely to fate.

CONTINUED in next part!


	4. 14-18 (of 24)

**Autopsy of the Heart - parts 14-18 (of 24)  
**

 **Part 14  
’I’ Confirmation  
Or  
The Apple Exists in Your Eye**

  
 **March 2256  
1\. **  
A cold, morning and Kirk stared past McCoy through the rain-splattered diner window at the wet sidewalk. He was hung-over; so was McCoy, he just wore it better. He felt his friend nudge him under the table with his toe.

“You’ve got your little boy lost face on,” McCoy said, peering over his third coffee.

“We drank way too much,” Kirk said, drawing his jacket around him.

Kirk could tell from that raised eyebrow that Bones knew that what troubled him was more than a tongue covered in a deep pile carpet and a stomach that rebelled each time a waitress walked past with another plate of food.

And Kirk felt supremely grateful that here was someone he knew that he didn’t have to explain to. Here was someone who _understood_ him.

Funny thing was, despite the obvious caring behind the question, McCoy didn’t mind whether Kirk provided a back-story or not at this point. That too showed how well he knew him.

For that he loved him.

 **2.**  
People struggled past the window, collars up, bent into the wind. No one knew him and he didn’t know them. He looked at McCoy again who had closed his eyes.

Kirk ran his finger round the rim of his coffee cup, breathed deep, and wondered if he should disturb him.

He needed his friend’s eyes on him today. He needed to know that someone could see him. That he did, indeed, _exist_.

‘I need you to see me,’ he said out loud in his head. He put an emphasis on the word _I_. He tried it out again in Klingon. Sounded just as stupid.

Then he kicked McCoy under the table.

“What the fuck?”

“You fell asleep.” Kirk beckoned to the waitress for more coffee.

 **3.**   
“Quit drinking coffee, Jim, you know it makes you jittery.”

“What are you, my fucking mom?”

Kirk smiled easily at his friend and winked at him. Damn, that used too many facial muscles and it hurt his eyeballs, but he didn’t want McCoy to misunderstand. He was just teasing - it earned him a smile back, a Bones Smile.

This made Kirk want to sit up in his chair a little so it could reach more of him. He resisted – really needed to work on his cool when he was around McCoy.

See, that was proof, he told himself, as he finally felt ready to confront the bright colors on the menu.

When someone loves someone, they care about them; they take a deep interest in them.

McCoy obviously cared about him. Why else would he show concern about his caffeine intake?

“Fine, jus’ don’t expect me to let you share my bed tonight with your twitchy legs and your speaking-in-tongues dreams.”

McCoy rolled his eyes dramatically to complete his picture of caffeinated Jim. He shot a look at someone watching him.

“Is _that_ what I look like?” Kirk said.

“Yep.”

They both stared at the table top.

“Guess I should eat something…” Kirk picked up the menu again, “Computer, dim…”

“…menu to 20%.” McCoy finished for him, not even bothering to roll his eyes at the same lame joke Kirk hauled out each time they sat at a table somewhere nursing hangovers.

 **4.**  
“That’s your fifth cup of coffee.”

 **5.**  
Kirk’s scooted round so he sat the same side of the table as McCoy. It didn't surprise him when McCoy silently refused to sit with his legs together and make more room.

“See, you’ve spent too much time alone, old man.” Kirk waved a fork as he spoke, licking a stray piece of pie off his lip. He noticed McCoy looking at his mouth. “You want some?” He entertained a vision for a bright second of feeding his friend straight from the fork, licking the cream he’d leave glistening on his lips; then he turned away, scooped the last forkful up and raised his eyebrows at McCoy. McCoy folded his arms in response so Kirk shoved the last piece of pie in, put the fork directly down on the table and gasped because McCoy had grabbed his wrist.

“Do _not_ lick the fucking plate, Jim. They’ll throw us out.” He let go, huffed and slid back on the bench.

Kirk pushed the plate away. “If you’d hung out with more people, you know, had to share actual _space_ with them, you’d be more accommodating.”

He nudged McCoy’s thigh again and it automatically pinged back against his.

“Is this about me not wanting to sit with my legs crossed like you do?” Bones’ voice was definitely all growly now.

“You’re stubborn. There’d be more room if you sat like a doctor and not a cowboy.”

McCoy puffed. “Ever occur to you that it’s _because_ I’ve always been surrounded by lots of people that I sit like this?”

“All those sisters?”

McCoy tipped his head.

“’sides, my legs are too long to cross.”

“Our legs are the same length; we’re pretty much the same height.” McCoy wasn’t the only one who looked and noticed, Kirk thought smugly.

 **6.**   
That night, Jim spent long hours staring at the chronometer or McCoy’s back depending on the hour.

Mentally, he scrolled through what he knew already about his friend. He arranged all the information he’d picked up without trying: his ex-wife; his divorce; his daughter; his father’s death; he was five years older than Jim; he hated flying; loved his whiskey; loved riding; adored Neil Young; hated team sports but liked to play tennis; hated spicy food and this and all the other details, the way he spoke of himself, who he liked (very short list) and who he didn’t like (very long list) added up to a picture of who _he, McCoy,_ really was.

He then began to compile a list of questions because the current portrait of Bones was still a sketch and he needed to fill it out. He didn’t need to write his list down because he always remembered everything. If he chose to.

He realized he’d have to hang with the old man every day of his life to find out _who_ he really was. It would need that much time to find this stuff out indirectly, without interrogation, within the rules they’d established already of caring but not prying, ignoring bad moods but still listening.

He turned to face McCoy again and saw that he was now on his back, snoring a little. Kirk stared at his profile, at the olive skin and the dark hair.

‘I need to see you,’ he said out loud in his head.

 **7.**  
“That McCoy drives me fucking crazy.”

Kirk heard one of the nurses say when he waited for his friend at the end of a shift. The two nurses, a woman and a man, leaned up against the admissions desk. They seemed oblivious to the fact that the waiting patients might overhear them. They could no more care less that Kirk might hear them, than the bum dozing across two seats would.

“Dude’s got a problem with please and thank you,” the male nurse agreed.

Kirk could feel anger creeping to his hands and he waggled his fingers to stop the fists forming.

“Some southern gentleman, huh?” the other one said.

And talk of the devil, all crumpled, lanky and half-asleep in his scrubs, McCoy turned the corner and made straight for the desk. He leaned over and retrieved a PADD and keyed something in. He hadn’t acknowledged the nurses nor Kirk. He dropped the PADD again, picked up his backpack and strode past Kirk who knew to stand and follow him.

“Goodnight, Doctor!” two voices chorused behind him.

“Eighteen hours straight - what they got to be so cheerful about? Makes me sick to my stomach.”

Outside it was foggy. They stopped while Kirk rooted round in his coat pocket.

“You excited about Georgia, Bones?” The first day of spring break was the following day.

McCoy grunted and held out his hand. Kirk handed him the hip flask. McCoy took it without a word.

Rude fucking bastard. Kirk thought with a grin.

 

 **Part 15  
Intermittences of the Heart  
Or  
Who the Hell Are You? **

**June 2256 ( _March 2256, Spring Break_ )  
1\. **  
It’s summer. Kirk lies on the grass, his arm across his face to shield it from the sun and groans happily. He’s completed his last exam of the first year and waits for McCoy. He’s late. He’s always late.

Kirk makes himself comfortable. Loves dozing in public places; puts his back pack under his head, kicks off his shoes, drains the last of his bottle of water and closes his eyes. Loves the feel of the sun on his skin. Can already hear Bones bitching about no sun cream and skin cancer and it makes him as warm on the inside as his cheeks are on the outside.

He wonders at what point in the last year he went from loving McCoy to simply being _in_ love. And what was the difference anyway.

This line of thought hurts his head more than the astrophysics exam he’d sailed through, where he’d even found time to draw some pornographic doodles of the Vulcan professor while he waited for the other cadets to finish up. He’d left them torn into rough pieces under his paper. Give the tight-ass something to do next time he’s home bored, a little puzzle.

 **2.**  
He thinks back to the Spring break. He remembers how apprehensive he felt getting into the public transporter with McCoy, heading to Georgia. He hardly knew him then, he realizes.

Was Bones in Georgia the same Bones he met on the plane? McCoy has revealed more of himself to Kirk, week after week, whether he's wanted to or not, simply because Kirk’s there to observe him.

So was this Leonard McCoy, the one who was late, the same one as Georgia - or a different one? Was this sun burning his face the same one the ancient Greeks gazed at and believed Apollo pulled across the heavens? Was this tree close by the _same_ tree it was a year ago?

 **3.**  
Everything changes, grows, expands, ages, decays, Kirk decides.

We give objects, people, the sun, one name, because that’s how we make sense of things. But the sun changes constantly. McCoy changes constantly.

Take for example McCoy at the transporter going _to_ Georgia, growling when he put his thumb over the screen in security, “Unsanitary. What’s wrong with retinal scans like they do on other planets? His shoulders hunched, clinging to his back pack, his battered old suitcase, newspaper under his arm. Was McCoy one of the last consumers of paper on Earth, Kirk often wondered?

“I can’t hide from people I don’t want to talk to, behind a PADD, can I?”

Then there was McCoy on the way _back_ : louche, tan, grinning at Kirk, arms loose and easy by his side, the bruises on his neck covered with a casually knotted scarf – he looked dashing with his white shirt open and his riding boots. Decided to wear them because they were too heavy to carry and he was dammed if he was leaving them behind.

Kirk’s groin aches at the memory.

They'd been so happy.

 **4.**  
Yet when he thinks back, he realizes that it hadn’t all been happy. This was how he **remembered** it, but when he probes his memories deeper, the break had been made up of lots of different emotions which now, looking back, seemed to have conveniently melded into _one_ impression, _one_ word, so that when people asked him, (they probably didn’t dare ask Bones), “How was your break?” he’d say,

“Cool!”

Cool comprised:  
• **Irritation** at having to use the expensive transporter rather than fly because McCoy hated flying  
• **Desire** when he watched McCoy unpack his suitcase, open on the bed, grousing about the "shit" allocation of drawers he was going to have  
• **Apprehension** when Kirk secretly pondered various plans, the goal being to get those two beds pushed together  
• **Pride** when he looked at himself in the mirror after taking a shower the first day  
• Sheer fucking **love** when he noted McCoy’s accent slid down the banisters as soon as he was home and among people who spoke like him. “ _Normal_ fucking people, Jim.”

And this was just day one. Before they’d even kissed.

 **5.**  
 _McCoy hadn’t wanted to meet up with family. His daughter was still out of bounds, still too vulnerable to tears and nightmares without her daddy, and he’d instituted a self-imposed ban until the time felt right. He’d hinted he was still sore about how they'd been with him after the divorce, needed to keep away. He wouldn’t expand and Kirk didn’t press him. Kirk realized that this was enough like home so McCoy could relax but far enough so they wouldn’t bump into anyone._

 _And then there was this guy._

 **6.**  
 _They’d hooked up in a restaurant and Kirk noted with **annoyance** (add that to the list), that McCoy seemed almost excited about meeting up._

 _“We go back a long ways.”_

 _“Yeah.”_

 _James Edward Hansford. The fucking third._

 **7.**  
 _Kirk had kept up the friendliness all evening, smiling, making nice, and they’d stopped off at a bar on the way back to shoot some pool. He caught James looking at Bones’ ass a couple of times._

 _And if it wasn’t irritating enough that they had the same name, McCoy was suddenly getting on better with someone else. Getting on with another human being. McCoy didn’t do friendships. This,_ their _friendship was a one-off._

 _Kirk slammed the black into the top right pocket and spun round to punch the air at Mr the Third but he hadn’t noticed from his bar stool, pool cue between his thighs. And Bones?_ Surely _he was standing too close? He was flirting._

 _Kirk hooked the pool cue back on the rack and drained his whiskey. Found a smile from somewhere deep inside, and slapped James on the back._

 _“Loser buys,” he said. Yep, Mr the Third may have hijacked Jim’s name, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be stealing his –_

Fuck, Kirk snorts on the grass when he thinks back - he’d almost said the word _boyfriend_. And that had been hot, shoulder pressing _embarrassment_ \- what a jerk!

 **8.**  
A shadow falls across Kirk as he lies on the grass and his heart feels like it might sail into his throat.

“What you laughing about? If I’d have had any idea astrophysics could be so much fun, I’d have dropped out of medical school in the first year.”

“Leonard Horatio McCoy.” Kirk’s aware that he’s grinning like a loon.

McCoy sits next to him, just a few inches between them. He's in his red uniform which looks about as out of place on the grass - as a fur coat in summer.

Kirk probably watches a little too hungrily as McCoy unbuttons his jacket, folds it carefully, removes his shirt to a bare chest and flops onto his back, kicking off his shoes. One thing since Georgia, he doesn't have to hide how sexually attracted he is to Bones.

Long as he doesn't touch.

“Jesus it’s hot!”

“Betcha not wearing cream,” Kirk says.

“Fuck off.”

 **9.**  
The red pants, the bare chest, he looks positively Napoleonic, Kirk thinks, squinting at McCoy’s lean belly.

“Stop thinking those thoughts, Jim.”

“Actually, I was thinking about Spring break.”

He doesn't move. After a minute, “What about Spring break?”

 _“Him…”_

“I thought we’d been through this already.”

 **10.**  
What would it have been like for McCoy if he had chosen James Hansford the Third and not Jim? He wouldn’t have gotten married to Jocelyn, so he wouldn’t have gotten divorced. Who would he have been? Different paths, different experiences, different baggage. Could McCoy have been this lovable if he’d been a _different_ McCoy?

And what would have happened to Jim?

 **11.**  
“You were experiencing romantic nostalgia,” Kirk said, “When you wanted to meet up with-“

McCoy sits up sporting a killer what-the-fuck expression. It makes Kirk want to kiss him there on the grass in front of everyone. But they have agreed that this couldn’t ever happen. No more kisses, no more fucking. It was over pretty much as soon as it had started. Thank fuck they are still friends.

 **Regret** , he checks his mental list.

“The trouble with you, Jimmy boy, is that you spend your whole day behaving like an asshole, but when people aren’t looking, you read stuff, you plot and scheme and then,” McCoy drops his voice, looks over his shoulder, “when they’re not looking, when they least expect it,” he leans forward, his face inches away from Kirk’s, but he doesn’t kiss him, instead he ruffles his hair, “you POUNCE. With _thoughts_!”

Kirk can’t help laughing with him although he’s feeling a definite stirring in his groin at the puff of breath from McCoy on his face for a few seconds.

“If I may be allowed to continue?”

“You sound like a Vulcan. Or someone British.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, _continue_ …”

“You have a type.” Kirk says.

“I do?”

“Yep, blond, enthusiastic and – “

“ _Female_ , Jim. I told you that already.” He lies back down. Closes his eyes.

Kirk’s voice wavers a little. “So, James Edward Hand-Job the Fourth, is your type.”

“The third.”

“The third.”

This, if you follow the logic, makes me your type, Jim thinks.

“Not a _female_ , Jim. And trust me, I know, I’m a doctor.”

 **12.**  
Kirk feels **angry** and **rejected**? Shit his list was getting longer and longer.

How could this be the same McCoy who winked at him in the transporter on the way home from a week of the best sex he’d ever had?

If we change constantly, Kirk thought, maybe in the morning, through some miracle, he’d wake up, not give a shit that he was never to be loved?

Maybe that’s what happened to McCoy: the natural changes you'd observe in a tree over hundreds of years if you used stop-motion, so McCoy had inexplicably gone from lover in March to exclusively heterosexual man without a lover now, in June.

 **14.**  
And as for himself - who _the fuck_ is Jim Kirk? Since _when_ did he start giving a shit about feelings and whether or not sex meant something more? How come he has changed?

He’d always been the same on that issue. Until Spring break.

“I’m gonna take a shower, Bones. I’ll go back to my place.” He puts his shoes on, hoping McCoy will open his eyes, smile at him, and give him _something_. No response. “I’ll catch you later.”

He doesn't mention his headache. For once, he doesn’t want Bones to be a doctor to his patient.

 **Part 16  
The Fear of Happiness  
Or  
Better the Dog's Life**

 **March 2256, Spring Break  
1\. **  
_Anhedonia, the inability to express or feel joy._

Yes, that sounded right. Sometimes Kirk thought McCoy just _didn’t want_ to be happy.

McCoy had found a bed and breakfast for them – it was beautiful with jade green plaster-work, a slate roof and surrounded by lawns. It was an easy ride to the river and walking distance from downtown. McCoy liked to walk, Kirk noticed. He liked to feel the hard ground underfoot.

“I don’t like fishing. I don’t like sitting still,” Kirk protested.

“You’ll like fishin’ with me, shut up,” McCoy growled. “It’s peaceful.”

Broad avenues, three hundred year old oaks and deserted streets.

“You ever see that movie, Driving Miss Daisy, Bones?”

“I thought you said you didn't watch movies…”

“No. Just rather be outside. But I used to watch them sometimes - I got grounded a lot.” He pointed out of the window from their room, “Just like this.” Beautiful but quiet. Slow.

“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.” McCoy glanced around the room, “I’m taking this cot, so you don’t wake me every time you take a leak in the night.” He looked more grouchy than normal.

“Well, it _is_ your side of the bed.” Blew him a kiss, just to piss him off. Kirk gazed at McCoy across the two beds, the gap between them, “Hey old man, just making an observation, cultural reference points and all. It's fucking beautiful here. “

Kirk saw that McCoy frowned. He kicked his own case under the bed and sat down in a chair, swung his legs up and placed his sneakers plum on the bedcovers. McCoy didn’t rise to the bait. So he tried something else while he enjoyed the sight of McCoy leaning over the bed, taking out his clothes, arranging his socks; quite incredible how the most ordinary of acts when performed by the object of his desire should seem so, well – horny.

“Two drawers each.” Kirk stroked his chin, rubbed his eyes.

“Asshole, when are you going to unpack?” McCoy opened the top drawer.

“Later.”

 **2.**  
“Hey, this place _is_ wonderful.”

They drank beer out of tankards, the condensation slipping on Jim’s hands. He watched a tiny speck of foam that had settled on the corner of McCoy’s mouth. Found his eyes wouldn’t stop returning there.

“I can see some really beautiful stuff.”

McCoy frowned again. “Where?” He wore a plaid shirt over a white t-shirt, jeans, a big belt and sneakers. Where _indeed?_

“The landscape man, on the ride down. The sky.” Kirk took a long glug of his beer, wiped his hand across his mouth. Miles and miles of pine trees and the sky smattered with the whitest, fluffiest clouds he’d seen since Iowa. He’d been surprised how green it was. “Makes me fucking happy to be here, man.” He leaned across and punched McCoy lightly on the arm. “Something up?” Maybe he was still grousing because Kirk had said he didn’t want to fish.

“No,” McCoy said sourly.

“Your glass is half empty. Want a refill?” McCoy shook his head, “Do you want to know what your problem is?” Kirk said. That was his friend’s ‘not really’ face Kirk realized, but he went on. “You’re always thinking about something else.” He swept his arm across their immediate surroundings. They sat at a wooden table placed directly in the middle of the lawn, blue sky, a few kid's drawing style clouds, Spring birdsong, peach blossom... it was almost too chilly to sit out but Kirk was finding out just how stubborn McCoy could be.

McCoy frowned, “There always _is_ something else, that’s why.”

“No, Bones. There shouldn’t be, is the point. Look…” he dragged his chair closer to McCoy, “See that dog, he doesn’t think about yesterday, tomorrow, he thinks about _now_. So he’s happy.”

“Fucking simple as that?”

Kirk nodded. “We’re here in this beautiful place and we’re thinking about it being over. Then we’ll be home and wishing we were here instead…” he thought about standing up, walking over and petting the dog but it was way too far. “Tomorrow we’ll think about today. Today we think about tomorrow or yesterday…” He took a moment to consider, “…and fuck knows what we were thinking about yesterday.”

“Today?”

Hey, _there_ was a smile...

Kirk nodded in agreement. “When the fuck we gonna think about today _today_ , Bones?”

“How old did you say you were?”

Kirk leaned across for the bottle of whiskey and dragged it by the neck towards him; it seemed reluctant, heavy somehow. “Old enough.”

“That dog,” McCoy slurred slightly, “hasn’t just had a fucking divorce, has probably been laid more recently than me, and,” he looked conspiratorial, whispered, “still has his balls.”

They both laughed uncontrollably for several minutes. Each time one of them attempted to start another topic of conversation, the giggles started up again.

Kirk had noticed Bones hadn't mentioned his kid once since they got there.

 **3.**  
Kirk woke up first, wiped some drool off his chin and sat up carefully, already aware that there was something like a headache behind his eyes. Shit, afternoon drinking, you couldn’t beat it.

The sun had almost set, and the air had cooled.

McCoy had dozed off at the table, his head on his arms, his legs in a V. Fuck it, he was going to enjoy looking for once, Kirk thought. So he started at McCoy’s feet, sneakers, laces undone, (Bones always seemed to want to be taking off his shoes), up long, long legs, thighs bigger than his and he had no idea how they got that way. Bones never seemed to have time to go to the gym and, when he did, he spent more time standing around with his arms folded, bitching at the people around him. The only part of him got a work out was those eyeballs of his - from the constant rolling. And that plaid shirt. Shit he looked good in that – always looked out of place in uniform; needed softer, baggier clothing which you’d have to search for him in. Now he was getting hard – better walk it off before Bones woke up.

He took his jacket off his chair and draped it over McCoy’s back and went inside.

He had a feeling he was going to remember that afternoon for a long time to come.

 

 **Part 17  
Contractions  
Or  
How to Murder Your Wife**

 **( _2253_ ) March 2256, Spring Break  
1\. **  
_McCoy can’t remember when Jocelyn had begun to fake her orgasms but he remembered wondering how the_ hell _she expected to hide it from a doctor._

 _He didn’t mention it, of course._

 **2.**  
 _Then one evening she collected him from the hospital, Joanna came along for the ride, and she met the new resident, Dr Abel Marin. Something changed then, and it was around this point Joss began asking him questions about his work, when she hadn’t really taken any interest for a couple of years. Why he’d chosen the career path he had, why he didn’t push himself more, why he hadn’t stuck with surgery?_

 **3.**  
 _Then Abel came over for dinner, no he didn’t have a girlfriend currently. Didn’t matter, Joss said, just a casual dinner, chance to get to know each other. He was new to the area, it would be nice._

 _It was round about this time that McCoy noticed she’d taken to having her hair done differently. When they say men don’t notice this stuff, don’t believe them. They notice. What they don’t do is say anything._

 _One night, Abel stayed over, he’d had too much to drink to drive, so half way through the evening, he agreed that he’d crash in the spare room._

 _McCoy had gone to bed around 2am after he’d fallen asleep while the three of them talked. He woke up with a start and looked at Jocelyn. She looked alive, very beautiful and animated in the firelight. Abel was laughing, sitting quite some way from her but he could tell there was a connection. He grunted his good nights and left them talking._

 _McCoy probably should have stayed. Things might have turned out differently if he’d fought for her. Two hours later he woke up, stared at the clock, the ceiling, glanced at the empty pillow next to him. Then he went back to sleep._

 **4.**  
“You ever read anything by Proust, Bones?”

“Maybe…”

“One thing I read, _about_ him, stuck in my mind – he tells a story of a king, Mohammed II his name was. “

“What about him?”

They were having breakfast in the garden, huddled up in their coats; they’d both had eggs, bacon and toast, but Kirk had decided against the grits his friend seemed such a big fan of, even though McCoy had assured him there was, “nothin’ like grits to fix you when whiskey’s ripped the lining clean outta your stomach.”

McCoy had insisted they be outside. He’d said that one day, when they were up in a tin can in space, they’d wish they’d felt this, been here. Maybe the stuff Jim had said about living in the moment had rubbed off on him after all.

“He had a harem.” Kirk waggled his eyebrows, scooped some egg into his mouth. “Imagine that Bones!”

“I guess it would be one way to keep all those women beatin’ a path to my door in check,” McCoy murmured.

Kirk continued, “So there was this one woman, beautiful she was –“

“They ever ugly, you know _king’s_ wives?” McCoy sipped his second glass of fresh juice, his eyes half open.

“And he could sense that he was falling in love with her and, because he was the king, the ultimate power, he didn’t want to be beholden to her, you know?” Kirk poured them both another half cup of coffee, draining the jug.

“Is this going to have a happy ending? I’ve got a fuckin’ _hangover_ here.”

“He had her killed, Bones.”

McCoy noticed that Kirk’s voice cracked as he spoke.

The words hung there.

“Killed? Even though he loved her?”

Now why would he do that?

 **5.**  
 _Then came the night that it was_ his _turn to sleep in the guest bedroom, not lover boy’s. McCoy still loved her. But his love for her had turned into a sickness. Something he had to cure._

 _Over the space of a few months he’d gone from hurt, cuckolded husband to pathetic, pleading stalker. From the righteous to the write-off._

He had to love Georgia – full of wonderful memories.

 **Part 18  
Romantic Terrorism   
Or  
Love Me, Dammit, or I’ll be Forced to Make You**

 

 **( _2254 / March 2256, Spring Break_ ) June 2256  
1\. **  
McCoy didn’t just give in.

 **2.**  
 _He had a feeling that if he could talk Jocelyn round, she’d fall right back in love with him again._

 _The first night he spent alone in his hotel room, he plotted. He decided he’d have a go at the romance thing - flowers, dinner etc._

 _She refused to meet him._

 _When he came over to see Joanna but with flowers for Jocelyn, she took them from him like they were smeared in shit and didn’t make a comment._

 _The next time he got her flowers, she made enough comment to keep him out of a florist’s for life._

 _It was too fucking late._

 _He should have known not being around all those times, spending all his time in study, he should have known she’d have to find someone to notice her, hold her, tell her she was beautiful._

 _He sure as hell hadn’t been doing it._

 **3.**  
 _He even took a shot at emotional blackmail – now, he didn’t call it that, of course._

 _He reasoned that if he made a big show of being a great daddy, just by being one_ naturally, _she must understand that Joanna was better off with_ him, _and at home_ with _her._

 _She noticed alright._

 _“You’re a great dad, Leo, whatever else had gone wrong between us, I’ll never say a word against you to her. I promise that.”_

 _Shit. How could he move in for the kill when she was going to be so nice?_

 **4.**  
That summer with Kirk, looking back at Spring break, McCoy is convinced that he’s the unluckiest man in the world. It’s like being with Jocelyn all over again.

The only difference being that he's learned his lesson and he isn’t about to stoop to _forcing_ someone to fall in love with him.

Jim doesn’t see him that way and that’s that.

Shame it makes him feel like his heart has been stamped on. He’ll get over it - one thing doctors know is that things generally heal.

If they don’t kill ya first.

With his eyes firmly closed, lying on the grass, desperately trying to will his erection away before Jim notices, trying not to think about how his face had looked as he'd _entered_ him, _Jesus_ \- he realizes that only two guys could fuck for a week solid and not be sure what the other’s feeling.

He knows Jim had wanted him to follow just then. He knows Jim had a headache and he knows, (because Jim had told him in Georgia), the sure fire, _allergy-free_ way to banish a genius' headache was a good fucking. So they'd had to test it out because that’s what medicine was based on.

Only Jim could demonstrate that much desire for someone and _feel_ such open lust without being in love too.

McCoy decides he, on the other hand, must be some class of hermaphrodite because being in _love_ and _making love_ tended to go hand in hand.

Three or four months haven’t helped at all. Kirk still flirts constantly while he rebuffs him. Constantly. What else can he do?

And the purely heterosexual thing - Jim can’t argue with him on that, so he’s sticking to it.

So his strategy doesn’t really hold water, so fucking sue him. McCoy’s heart is already so shot full of holes, the way he feels about the glorious bastard, the best thing he can hope for is to create some kind of sexual distance before he makes an even bigger fool of himself.

Jim's gone now. And he's not going to follow. He can do this. The kid only wants a quick knee-trembler - he can use his fucking hand, the bastard.

 **5.**   
He remembers coming back, that first night after their break in Georgia. He felt so damn happy, he was frightening people in the street with his goddamed gurning.

 _They went to their separate rooms to dump stuff and Jim said, "Keep the boots on."_

 _McCoy jerked off in the shower, couldn't fucking stand the sexual tension since they hadn't been alone for hours, and he hadn't been able to touch Jim or kiss him and, as he'd made clear, he wasn't able to deal with public shows of affection - not just yet, anyhow._

 _What a sad, desperate, pathetic fool._

 _He almost ran to the bar and when he walked in, it felt like someone had cut his strings._

 _There Jim was with some chick rubbing up on him. And he was giggling at something she said so it looked like they_ knew each other _from before and Jim looked good, he always looked good, but he’d caught a bit of early sun, his hair was all mussed up the way the girls, shit the way_ he _liked it. As McCoy approached, he was glad it was kinda dark so it wouldn’t be obvious how flushed he was and that there were fucking tears in his eyes._

 _"Hey, Bones!"_

 _Just a look over his shoulder at his 'friend' who less than six hours ago had been balls deep inside of him, somehow managing not to tell Jim_ exactly _how he fucking felt as he came like a train._

 _Kirk_ looked _at him._

 _That look_ meant _something._

 _And McCoy had no clue what._

 _He had no fucking idea what Jim was asking him there._

 _So he looked away. Gave him permission to go. And thinking back now, McCoy’s not sure whether that’s what he meant to do._

 _He wasn’t about to huff and tantrum and threaten or plead – he was a doctor not a terrorist._

 _He could see that Jim wasn’t interested in a relationship._

 _He knew there was nothing he could do to_ make him _fall in love with him. Just like he hadn't been able to influence how Jocelyn had felt about it._

 _You couldn’t force love in and you couldn’t crowbar it out._

 _And he knew that his heart could only take being broken once. Hell, it still wasn’t fixed from the last time._

 **6.**  
This is why he joined Starfleet. He needs, for the sake of his sanity, to keep himself away from people he loves: he needs to keep away from Jocelyn so he can retain some dignity and he needs to keep away from his family because they are angry with him - wanting to know how he could quit so easily when he has a child.

Holding Joanna, his daughter was what did it - that's where he'd had the epiphany. The way he loves her, the way she hadn’t asked him to, the way he knows that whatever she does, he’d always love his little girl. Sure, it isn’t romantic love, of course, but it is _proof_ you can’t _make_ someone feel like that.

From then on, he’d no longer had the strength to force his love on her mother.

7\.   
And he wasn’t about to make that mistake with James Kirk.

CONTINUED in next part!


	5. 19-21 (of 24)

**Autopsy of the Heart - parts 19-21 (of 24)  
**

  
**Part 19  
Beyond Good and Evil  
Or  
You Always Hurt the One You Love **   


July 2256 ( _sometime before Spring Break_ )  
 **1.**  
McCoy received an old fashioned letter from Jocelyn the first week at the academy.

He read it and re-read it.

She changed her mind about one thing – she decided she was the villain of the piece.

  
_I wasn’t good enough for you, Leo. You only have to look at all the things I’ve done to you._   


 

 **2.**  
He wonders what the letter _he_ would have sent would say.

Funny how when people spoke or wrote about love it was all about good and evil.

I was _wrong._

I’m not _good_ enough.

You deserve someone _better_ than me.

 _It’s my fault_ , his letter might have said, _I abandoned you when you needed me, after the baby was born._

 **3.**   


  
_I’m sorry I can’t love you any more._   


Was falling out of love a sin?

If it was a sin, then he committed it when he gave up on their relationship. He hadn't fought for her because he hadn't loved her anymore. He was just too lazy to admit this to himself. He tried to keep her loving him so he could hang on to Joanna. That had been wrong.

No matter - being in love with Jim Kirk was punishment enough.

 **4.**  
McCoy still keeps that letter. He keeps it casually, just thrown in a drawer and, while he never reads it these days, he keeps it to remind himself that things changed.

And now, while he rifles through the drawer looking for some lube, he sees it - the envelope has a coffee ring on it. Oh yes, good and fucking evil, right and wrong. It is all so clear, isn’t it?

He isn’t quite sure why he has lube. Maybe Jim put it there, more likely left it lying around one time he tipped his bag out.

Shit, who is he kidding? McCoy remembers every damn thing – always; he knows exactly how the lube got there. His ridiculously capacious and bullet proof memory, he's come to realize, is a blessing for medicine and the good of those in his care, but a fucking burden when it comes to the rest of his life.

For a man who said pretty much one brash thing after another, and walked into one pothole lined with horse shit after another, a touch of amnesia wouldn't go amiss.

So, he casts his mind back to the time Kirk tipped his backpack over McCoy's bed, looking for something or other.

 _McCoy tried not to look but he was, at the time, in a permanent state of mind where every little detail about Kirk had become impossibly fascinating._

 _So, under the pretence of finding the whole show rather amusing, wearing his sarcastic face, hoping it would mask his interest, he took in the detail like his life depended on it and he’d be tested later by a sadistic God, intent on proving what a jerk he was._

 _He saw: candies, gum, cigarette papers, a lighter, condoms, PADDS, a beaten up novel he’d never read called Junky,_ his _music device, more condoms, tissues, an epi-hypo , reading glasses, a sock, a comm. And lube, two tubes, both pretty beat up._

 _Well, Jim wasn't going to miss one, was he? And he hoped at the time, when he was still actively_ behaving _like a major asshole (as opposed to now when he merely_ thought _like one), that maybe, someday, it would prove to be a stroke of luck that he just happened to have some of Jim's lube now that they were about to have drunken sex together._

Agony sits in his gut like an anvil dropped from his heart.

McCoy shoves the drawer shut and goes to open the door remembering to rearrange his features into what passes for his 'casual' face.

“Well, how-dee!”

“Come on _in_ , James Edward Hansford. The fucking Third.” McCoy grins, stepping back from the door. “Welcome to San Francisco!”

 **5.**  
“Sometimes a guy jus’ needed some lovin’.”

 

  
**Interlude  
In the Mirror**   


**( _March 2256, Spring Break_ ), July 2256 **

**1.** _~Georgia~_

 _"I'm kinda tired, Jim, think I'll turn in."_

 _What he was tired of, of course, was the strain of wanting Jim so bad, and not having the guts to do anything about it._

 _Jim wasn't buying it, McCoy could tell. He looked twitchier than usual. Maybe it was two whole days without casual sex, he thought bitterly. And Kirk was a good people-reader - even if he didn't have a clue what_ specifically _was up with him, it would have been impossible for him not to notice that McCoy was out of sorts._

 _A book. Sleep. Tomorrow they’d go fishing and it would defuse some of this shit. It had been a mistake to meet James. Jim hadn’t liked the guy and it had just been, well, awkward. He’d think about tomorrow - for now, he just needed to fucking sleep._

 _Well, he needed to get into his pjs but he couldn't do it here. The half-boner needed to be kept under wraps. He went through the drawer, taking a deliberately long time so Jim would just fuck off and stop looking at him like that._

 _After the couple of hours with his old friend, James, and a few games of pool, Kirk’s presence was beginning to piss McCoy off. McCoy had played at flirting, trying to ignore Jim’s ass as he cued, not drool at how he teased pulled-pork out of his bun when he ate at the bar, tried not to reach over and wipe the smear of coleslaw off his chin as he ate. Why couldn't he just stop glowing like that? And now, he could feel him from six feet away._

 _"You unpacked yet?" McCoy said over his shoulder._

 _"Kinda..."_

 _Good, he could hear rustling behind him. He stood up, turned and his eyes almost dropped to the dark wood floor and bounced between them._

 _He was naked - gloriously, unselfconsciously naked - stretched out on the pine bed like a lion. And he was very slightly hard._

 _Shit. Had he allowed his eyes to_ stray _?_

 _"You looking for your pjs, Bones?"_

 _Jim blinked real slow, like the big fucking alpha male cat he was. He moved his arms and folded them behind his head and crossed his legs at the ankles._

 _McCoy starred sullenly at the movement of the various muscles in Jim’s neck. If he was an artist, he'd trap the bastard in his fucking garret and not let him go until he'd reproduced each perfect curve and dip and bump. And he'd make sure it took a lifetime to get right._

 _"Yeah," he croaked._

 _"Hopefully you forgot to pack them."_

 __Hopefully _? "Jim. Are you high?"_

 _"Maybe a little, Bones."_

 _McCoy stepped in the space between the two beds and looked down at the banquet spread out before him._

 _"Shit, what did you take?"_

 _"I didn't take anything; I'm just high on your Georgian Spring. I like it here."_

 _Liked it enough to get hard?_

 _Kirk pushed himself up on his elbows and his cock nodded at McCoy. God he was shameless. What the hell was he up to?_

 _"Jim?"_

 _"Yes?"_

 _There was the fucking cat in him again - that was some kind of growl._

 _"Shouldn't you unpack?"_

 _"Yep. I'll do that now." Jim’s voice light, from the mouth of someone who sported erections in public on a daily basis or something. And he slid off the bed, but not how you'd expect,_ away _from McCoy and to the other side of the bed, so he'd have room to maneuver, so that his naked body wouldn't be inappropriately close. No, the bastard slid_ towards _McCoy; right there into his personal space with his hard-on and his pupils all blown and fuck-me._

 _"Jesus, Jim," he managed to say._

 _"Scuse me, Bonesy."_

 _McCoy didn't move. He could feel the heat from him, Jim’s breath on his face with the scent of beer and pretzels, could see the rise and fall of his chest. McCoy still had enough matter working in his brain to appreciate, thank fuck, that he_ couldn't _see his own slack-jawed expression reflected back at him in those infernal blue eyes._

 _Neither of them moved._

 _"Bones?"_

 _"Yes, Jim?"_

 _"Am I giving out mixed messages here or something?"_

 _McCoy didn't answer. He was too busy grabbing his friend's shoulders and pulling the length of Jim's body against his, while his lips ate him alive, took his very breath - in case this was a fucking dream and he'd wake up in a minute and he'd be left with nothing but a glass slipper. More appropriately, a biker boot, he thought, smiling through the kiss and drawing Jim's tongue into his mouth, feeling a little dizzy and unsure how this had just happened._

 

 **2.** ~San Francisco~  
No sooner is James through the door and he's pushing McCoy up against the wall, his mouth homing in on his. This is all moving unexpectedly fast. McCoy turns his head away - doesn't want to kiss .

"Whoa, cowboy!" he says. "Let me get my breath here!"

"Leo, I've been thinkin' 'bout nothin' else all fucking week," James grins, pulling away and squeezing McCoy's ass before he completely breaks contact. "But I guess I could use a beer."

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all, but a couple of months of instant messages with James has got McCoy so damn horny that his old friends' timely business trip to San Francisco has him convinced it's exactly what he needs to get Jim out of his system.

McCoy hears the thud of James boots behind him and the noise of his belt buckle as he unfastens it. His cock responds, thank goodness, because something inside him worried he wouldn't be able to - he's turned into such a pathetic romantic of late.

James is sprawled out on the small couch, barefoot, jeans riding low, shirt undone and that nice blond hair sleeked back - he'll have to do something about messing that up McCoy thinks, handing him his beer.

 **3.**   
_He didn’t know how long they spent kissing but he didn’t ever want it to end. McCoy was still mostly dressed, although Jim managed to loosen his belt and pull his t-shirt up under his arms. He kicked off his shoes at least, but there wasn’t going to be any more undressing for the while because, at that moment, Jim's hands were gripping McCoy's face and his own were round the back of Jim's neck and in his hair, pulling so fucking hard at him, that he was half wondering if Jim would work out what he was feeling from the desperation and hunger he couldn’t keep out of his voice._

 _"Jim." McCoy broke for air, pulled his face away from Kirk's for a whole second to take a look at the flushed cheeks, those insolent lips, parted and panting._

 _Kirk opened his eyes and looked at McCoy with such wantonness that he wondered why the air between them didn’t actually crackle._

 _"Why have you stopped kissing me?" Kirk pulled McCoy a little closer so their breaths intermingled but their mouths weren't quite touching. He could feel Kirk's erection pressed against his belly, the tops of his feet rubbing up and down his calves._

 _"I must be out of my fucking mind," he growled, and lowered his lips right back where they should have been, searching for Jim's tongue and sucking it hard into his mouth, overwhelmed by the contrast in heat and softness centered around their lips, and the rasping of their chins over two day stubble._

 _He pulled away again to remind himself who exactly he was kissing here._

 _"So fuckin' pretty -" he moaned, sweeping his tongue the width of Jim's lips, pushing them apart again so he could explore his teeth, savor the taste of him, the trace of toothpaste, the beer from earlier and something he couldn't quite place but which he decided must just be the taste (at last) of Jim, his beloved. McCoy’s moaned again as the rhythm changed and Jim had flipped them over and it was his tongue that was being pulled so hard into Kirk's mouth that he was gasping for breath._

 **3.**  
"I don't kiss, sorry," McCoy says, as he helps James pull his jeans down.

"That's cool with me." James takes a long pull on his beer and McCoy removes his guest's underpants.

Now he's seen three cocks up close and personal, so to speak. This one is definitely the largest, which should have him champing at the bit. With typical politeness McCoy mutters, "Umm..." and then has his lips around the end and his fingers at the base trying to remember what it was, exactly, that Jim did to his cock in Georgia, that had him bucking semen into his mouth on half a dozen occasions over those few days.

"Yes, just like that - " comes the vote of confidence from above him.

 **4.**  
"Now _what are you doing?"_

 _McCoy had managed to get some of his clothes off and he'd wriggled down the bed so his head was in line with Kirk's belly._

 _"Enjoyin' the view. Quit rushing me."_

 _It was fucking beautiful. Well of course it_ would _be. Longer and slimmer than his own, a pale blue vein snaking from the base and to about two thirds of the way up. The head looked vulnerable, damp - waiting for him. He looked up at Jim who was watching him with an unreadable expression. They locked eyes and McCoy gently ran his nail base to tip and down again. Jim bit his lip and his eyes glinted, so McCoy did it again, nice and slow._

 _"You do that again -” Jim said, clearing his throat, "just so you know, I'm gonna last about two seconds."_

 _McCoy didn't answer - after all, it would have been rude to speak with his mouth full._

 **5.**  
McCoy palms himself as he sucks James. Maybe it tastes different to Jim's - he's not sure, but what he does recognize is this; Jim's cock in his mouth felt like a fucking gift, like worship like -- he feels his breath hitch as he thinks back -- like _the reason._

James strokes his hair and says, "Leo, let's take this to the bed."

Sure. Why the fuck not?

 **6.**   
_"Promise you won't laugh, Bones?"_

 _"Uh-huh."_

 _McCoy had two lubed fingers poised. Kirk was a picture, another one in the series The Most Beautiful Sights Ever Seen in the private collection of Leonard H McCoy -- on his back, legs bent and knees up near his chest, ready. Ready for him._

 _"I've not done this before."_

 _Now that was a tone of voice he'd never had the pleasure of - demure?_

 _"Ah --"_

 _"Or should I say, had it done_ to _me --"_

 _He slid his finger in slowly, watching Jim's face all the time, his heart aching with joy. He'd really have to fucking watch what came out of his mouth from now on - this was getting very intense. How the hell had someone like Jim, who'd had every sexual partner every which way, managed to keep something back for him?_

 _Shit. If he'd believed in destiny..._

 _"Two okay?" he whispered._

 _"Oh!"_

 **7.**  
"Leo," James says, "I always top."

"I was hoping you'd say that," McCoy lies. "Lube's in the drawer."

He rolls onto his belly so he can hang onto the bed better. He's thought about this many times over the past few months. He can't believe he hadn't let Jim do this to him but he'd just not been ready - it was that one last step towards giving Jim everything and he'd been too scared - not of the physical, just of what it _meant_ and how vulnerable that would make him.

It's okay so far, James is in a bit of a hurry but that's the kind of guy he is - all business. When he works two fingers in it burns but if McCoy pulls the pillow to his face he might be able to get that fading smell of Jim from that t-shirt he keeps there at all times. That'll be like morphine, he knows it.

"Shit!" he can't help saying.

James stops. He's breached him now and is about half in although the way that massive cock feels inside him it's like someone's inserted a watermelon.

"Want me to stop?"

"No, it's been a while, is all - " and he manages to stop himself before he can launch into a long boring explanation about how full his schedule is, what with the rotations at the hospital, teaching classes, taking classes, that paper he's writing, and mooning over Jim, why - he rarely has time to pop out for a drink these days, let alone... but he _really_ needs to focus now and _fuck_ that hurts...

 **8.**   
_"Want me to stop?"_

 _He was about half way in and Jim was sweating. He wasn’t sure if Jim was loving or hating it. Sure there was a lot of gasping, but sweet Jesus, from_ there, _where he was kneeling, with those legs up over his shoulders, he was pretty damn sure that he’d just discovered the meaning of life._

 _"If you stop, I'll break your neck," Jim groaned._

 _McCoy edged forward an infinitesimal amount. He almost blurted out how he'd dreamt of this moment or something equally sappy, but decided against it, just in case the treacle would result in his losing his erection. But he had. He really had. Jim here, now, spread out under him like an offering - it just made everything in his fucking life up until this point_ better. __

_"Jim." This was his name. His healing._

 _"Bones, gonna come soon -"_

 _He forced his eyes open._ There, _all in. Sweet heavens - just fucking look at him. Jim had one hand on his own head, stroking between his eyes while the other glided up and down his cock._

 _"K - can I?"_

 _"Stop being so gentle, Bones. I get the feeling hard is gonna be.._.oh _...there...good...just_ there." __

_He didn't need asking twice. McCoy pulled back almost the whole way and then drove back in watching in utter awe as Jim came immediately, open mouthed and very noisily, shooting all over his belly._

 _One more stroke and he thought his heart would combust. McCoy clenched his jaw to stop himself saying anything he'd regret later._

 __"Jim _!" He wasn't sure if he'd said it out loud, as his brain had obviously melted completely, such was the force of his orgasm - but, while it was corny, it was nothing compared to what he'd wanted to say._

 **8.**  
"So good." James drawls, pulling all the way out and then slamming in again.

McCoy has managed to edge the t-shirt out from under the pillow and now has his mouth up against the cloth, even though James has pulled him up to all fours so he can get a better hold on his hips.

It doesn't hurt like it did, although James hasn't bothered to hunt out his prostate; he's at least reached round once or twice to pull at McCoy's cock. He thinks back to Georgia, to Jim's first time and he wonders if it hurt this much.

"Jim." he doesn't think he's said it out loud but good ol' James is working up a head of steam and probably can't hear him. He fists himself, so he can make this be _over_ , and just as he's walking the edge of his orgasm, he can hear James spout poetry behind him.

"Oh I like fucking that sweet ass of yours, Leo!"

The door swishes. He forgot to lock it.

 _No._

And McCoy's coming with the worst timing in his _fucking life_ saying his name, "Jim. _Jim_!" even as Kirk turns on his heel and the door closes behind him.

 _No._

 **9.**   
_"Anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are, Bones?"_

 _Jim was lying on top of McCoy, semen acting like an adhesive between them. He stroked one finger along the line of McCoy's eyebrows, the bridge of his nose and McCoy was practically purring._

 _"Only the last_ girl _who let me fuck her!"_

 _"Really?" Kirk frowned. “See that just goes towards backing up my theory - "_

 _"What theory?"_

 _"Long story, Bones --"_

 _And McCoy fucking loved him so hard at that moment he had to do something to shut himself up._

 _"Remind me again why you get to skip a year, dumbass?"_

 _And he pulled Kirk in for a hard kiss before he could respond._

 **10.**  
"You've never called me Jim before."

James struggles into his boots, takes one last swig out of the coffee cup and sets it down.

"Haven't I?" McCoy remembers how he focuses on calm when he makes an incision in surgery and applies this to how he controls his voice now.

He pulls on his jeans but doesn’t bother to put his t-shirt on. Needs to shower badly.

"Just strange, is all. Anyway, pal, I have to get going - big meeting tomorrow." He claps McCoy on the back.

"Sure, I know." McCoy walks him to the door. "Thanks for that. It was - great!"

Fucking liar, _liar._

"Leo, I know you don't kiss but - "and before McCoy can dodge or protest, James Hansford the Third leans down and kisses him full on the mouth." That was real sweet, thank you."

Before the hire car is even out of earshot, McCoy's in the shower, toothbrush working his mouth and the scalding water on full power washing away the come and the tears, but not making one bit of difference to the pain inside.

 

  
**Part 20  
Psycho-Fatalism  
Or  
Why Does This Shit Always Happen to Me? **   


**July 2256  
1\. **  
Kirk wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there, but enough time for the image of McCoy to brand itself on his mind.

He’d had two choices: punch James out, or walk.

Choice one was out. Despite his visceral response, Kirk was smart enough to realize he had no right. This wasn’t about exclusivity, this was about…shit…he’d have to think…

Kirk’s mind was chaos - a feeling he wasn’t used to. He knew certainty. He knew where he was, _who_ he was - even in moments of deepest pain.

This was more proof, (if he needed it), that love fucked with your brain cells. Thank goodness, Kirk thought, it wasn’t his heart driving his assignments and course work. He’d end up scrubbing toilets at the academy, not captaining a starship.

He decided to walk, but he’d have to do it with dignity. He didn’t want McCoy to think he was running. Since he had no intention of ever talking about this with McCoy, there couldn’t be any confusion.

The situation had been reversed many times. Kirk had been less than discreet, yet Bones had never once complained, He’d huffed, sure, but not _complained_. Walk out quietly, without a reaction – that’s what anyone would do if they caught someone fucking. Wouldn’t they? That’s what Bones had always done, so he’d understand.

But things had changed, Kirk thought, as the doors swished behind him and he strode away to the cafeteria his face flushed, hands clammy. Needed to sit and think and he needed to be in public so he was forced into maintaining this composure. Kirk knew that if you worked at it hard enough, the way you looked on the outside, it soon sank in and became real. He’d just have to do the time.

For now, he’d allow the negativity, the self-pity out once, and once only.

Just while he drank some coffee.

 **2.**  
Kirk’s coffee was half drunk and a Twinkie sat unopened on the side. Arms folded, ankles crossed, he stared at the table top. A few months ago he’d gone from fragmented, directionless, and powerless to having a mission, a destiny, all through the power of another person’s vision of him. That vision had become his.

Kirk was a man _in control_ of his destiny, and fate had fuck-all to do with anything.

 **3.**  
Until it came to matters of love, where it seemed destiny _did_ have a hand. A hand that liked to throw shit at him.

Destiny had fucked with his mom and now it was his turn.

Was this the one area where he just had to learn to _take_ it?

The cafeteria began to fill up. Kirk didn’t look up. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he found the sensation of other people milling about, of normalcy, comforting. Not alone but _left_ the fuck alone.

He needed to think.

This might explain his tomcat ways. Kirk knew he was smart, he easily worked out what made people tick. He needed to apply the same talent to himself. Maybe he’d worked out a long time ago that if he’d allowed himself to fall in love, it would stand in his way and make him weak.

This business with Bones, he’d let his guard down.

He’d received enough broken ribs and split lips in his time to get that yes, they hurt harder than hell _at the time_ , but wounds fixed themselves, with or without help. When you lay there at first, clutching your chest, rolling about, pain seemed to make time stand still, and moving forward, just getting past the moment of agony required the effort of a blind man wading through treacle. That’s how it _felt_. But he always got through and it stopped hurting. This was hard to remember at the time – in the throes. But he was remembering _now_.

Another part of Kirk’s mind warred with reason and logic and threw up a snapshot of Bones asleep next to him in Georgia. Arm thrown across his face, snoring slightly, dark lips parted, face soft and unshaven from days when all they did was fuck, eat and take a quick shower or nap to break it up, and the smell, the low haze of sex over them – _shit_. Jim’s guts lurched for a moment and he worried he’d throw up, eyes darting towards the restroom just in case.

He knew enough that one day that memory would be just that – a memory that he’d have to _think about_ to bring back, and then he might even forget to do that.

 **4.**  
Maybe it wasn’t the nature of love.

Maybe it was him.

Maybe love didn’t destroy other people.

 _Maybe it was him_. James Tiberius Kirk didn’t deserve love. Not from McCoy. Not from anyone.

He stared into the black dregs in his cup.

 **5.**  
It’s okay, he told himself. This is a one time deal. Once he got up from this table, he’d be back to bouncing boy. Enjoy this shit while you can.

His coffee was finished but he wasn’t done raking the coals. At least his stomach had settled down.

“Cadet Kirk!”

He looked up, startled. It was someone he recognized from pilot class.

“Sulu?”

“Yes, hi! Anyone sitting here, Kirk?”

“It’s Jim.” He sat up a little, pulled his legs back from under the table, fixed a smile and looked the pilot straight in the eye, “Go ahead.”

“Thanks! You want a coffee?”

Well, he hadn’t done thinking so – yes.

“Cool.”

 **6.**  
Kirk watched the young man who he’d noticed a few times; he’d nodded at him, but never spoken. Then he remembered – they’d had a collision at just this table in the first couple of weeks.

 **7.**  
Did God, Fate whatever, deal an even hand, to give him this mind, this strength, this destiny and opportunity to work for Starfleet, and then even the whole lot out by taking away everything from him when it came to filling his heart?

 **8.**  
Caffeine in his veins, a couple of hours under his belt, Kirk felt he walked taller through the quad on the way back than he had on the way there.

And like a prize for all his mental efforts, coming towards him was the striking figure of Pike’s secretary, the Frisian, Kevin. He’d have stood six foot five in his spangly socks but wearing his trademark platform shoes, he towered over everyone he sashayed past – you could never accuse Kevin of being shy.

“Kevin.” He nodded,

“Cadet Kirk,” Kevin said, walking on.

They both happened to be looking over their shoulders at the same time.

Kevin stopped. “Are you cruising me, cadet?” Kevin purred, transferring the pads he carried from one hand to the other.

Kirk was delighted with himself. It hadn’t been so long since the punch to the guts, since he’d seen Bones with James yet, here he was, managing to smirk without faking it.

“Well?” Kevin had closed the space between them. He bent down to whisper into Kirk’s ear. “I was on my way to see you.”

“Really?” It was hard not to feel a little intimidated by this. I mean the guy was _tall_.

“Well, maybe not today but I was definitely on my way to seeing you at some point.” The Frisian’s pearlescent skin glowed in the bright sunshine. He raised long fingers and splayed them elegantly across Kirk’s chest. “You busy?”

“Well, I have a class in,” Kirk looked at his watch, “ten minutes ago,” he laughed.

Kevin seemed in no hurry to step back. He lowered his eyes but not in modesty, rather to sweep Kirk’s body from top to toe and back again.

“There’s an office near to here. It’s useful for keeping things…you know, away from prying eyes.” He waggled blue eyebrows, “I have the code.”

“Of course you do.” Kirk followed the direction of Kevin’s glance. The quad was quieter now most classes were in the offing.

And with an unspoken agreement they both headed to a building offset from the square.

Kevin had a massive reputation around the campus not just for his striking appearance, but for his clubbing and his sexual exploits in the city. There were unsubstantiated rumors he fucked Pike on a regular basis but, despite (or because of) that, many had major crushes on him, but Kevin never went near cadets. This attention was an honor, and it made Kirk as hard as a fucking rock.

Jim chuckled in surprise when Kevin grasped his hips and lifted him high above his head as easily as if he’d been a rag doll. He then lowered Kirk to sit astride his shoulders, thighs pressed against Kevin’s jaw and his legs falling down the broadest shoulders Kirk had ever seen. Hands splayed on the ceiling above for balance, not quite daring to look down, Kirk’s erection pressed at Kevin’s chin through the cloth of his uniform. The Frisian’s slid pale hands along Kirk’s thighs, and kneaded his balls with surprising gentleness for such a big man.

“What have we here?” he purred, pushing Kirk back against the wall, his head almost at the ceiling.

“Let’s take a look,” Kirk managed to say, unzipping himself and somehow untangling his cock, resting its tip at Kevin’s mouth. He hadn’t thought about McCoy for minutes now, he realized. Yes, this was more like it. Just two guys, getting on down, no fucking bullshit, no promises. Just as soon as he was sucked off, he could go to class and _get on with his life._

One hand gripped Kevin’s long blue locks. “I thought you… _shit_ … only slept with Captains…” Kirk said, the familiar tightening at the base of his spine, the flush of abandon, the taste of fucking freedom rolling through him.

Kevin let go so he could answer in a groin burning baritone, “Maybe, but I make exceptions. You’re _going to be_ a captain. And you’re hot – I’m definitely not slumming it here. Now gimme back that famous cock of yours.” And holy shit, this guy knew what he was doing, flattening his tongue, taking Kirk deep, twisting his balls gently, stroking the skin between his legs…

Kirk half-closed his eyes. It was like he was on a bucking bronco, because he could fall off any second and break his neck. The slight risk made him euphoric. He’d been pressed against many a surface in his time but never a ceiling. He gazed down at Kevin’s hollowed cheeks, his shoulder length blue hair, which today he wore in a samurai knot – what a beautiful fucking man, he thought, hissing when Kevin squeezed his buttocks with hands the size of spades. It felt good to feel small for a change, not in charge.

“Hmm…I’ll have to tell Pike I’ve had a go. Make him jealous – I’ve seen the way you two look at each other,” Kevin whispered, releasing the tip of Kirk’s cock long enough to speak. “The beautiful James T Kirk – and his beautiful dick.“ Two more long tugs and Jim bucked long and hard into Kevin’s face, coming with a grunt.

Swallowing every drop and in no hurry to release him, Kevin looked up at him, gave a lop-sided grin. “Hmm…that’d fetch a good price on the black market.” And before Kirk could respond, he’d slid Kirk down the wall and encouraged him onto his knees on the floor. “Your turn, cadet.”

Kirk dragged his nails under Kevin’s soft, very expensive-looking shirt and couldn’t help gasping at the marble abs. This was going to be like blowing Michelangelo’s David, the only difference being that Kevin’s preternaturally white cock was entirely in proportion to his body. Jim managed to smirk, even with his mouth stretched to capacity, when he heard the appreciative moans above. Kevin raked ivory fingers through short hair until Jim had finished his eager sucking and swallowed every last drop, releasing the glorious cock and allowing Kevin to sag against the wall.

After, Kirk slouched against the wall and watched Kevin’s emerald eyes soaking up all the light in the room as he tucked himself back into his tight suit pants, biting his lip and smiling broadly at him.

Kirk helped him straighten out his jacket at the back then reached round, took Kevin’s hand and kissed the palm lightly.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice husky, “I really fucking needed that – it’s been a shit morning.” He planted another kiss on his chin, which was about as high as he could reach without Kevin helping. “You’re a real gentleman.”

Kevin hesitated. Was that a blush Kirk could detect?

“Hey, no worries, just make sure you make eyes at me next time you visit Pike, okay?”

“Try and stop me.”

 **9.**  
Smoothing out his uniform, Kirk waited a few minutes for Kevin to disappear from sight before walking in the opposite direction. There was Sulu again, who glanced at the Frisian, then Kirk.

“Hey I’m really looking forward to those private lessons!” Kirk called.

“Me too, Jim.”

Sulu’s face, as ever, was impassive.

That’s how he was going to lead his life, Kirk thought, heading for the lecture theatre; like someone in command – it came to his new friend Hikaru simply enough. He needed to take a leaf out of Sulu’s book and _show_ his heart who was boss. He wasn’t going to be love’s bitch anymore than Sulu was.

 **10.**  
Kirk hadn’t seen McCoy for hours now. He was going to damn well get used to it and like it. Loving someone and expecting them to love you back because of that – well that was sheer arrogance.

Arrogance didn’t make for a good captain.

 

  
**Part 21  
Suicide  
Or  
Making a Clean Break**   


**July 2256  
1**  
It came as no surprise to Kirk that he’d received no communication from McCoy whatsoever. They’d been friends for almost a year and they knew each other well enough that they’d recognize they wouldn’t be talking about what had just occurred. What he'd seen.

Three hours had passed but it felt like an entire season - his heart had moved from summer to winter in the few seconds it took for the image of Leonard McCoy being fucked by someone else to brand itself into his flesh.

This bullshit about only liking women - it had been Bones’ way of closing all doors to him.

It didn’t stop Kirk checking his comm every five minutes. No messages.

He felt calmer now, Kevin being as responsible for that as his own mental efforts.

Kirk slept like a baby but when he shaved the following day, he fancied his eyes looked hollow. Why would that be, he thought irritably, when he’d re-connected with his life purpose? If anything, that ought to have put a spring in his step. Everything was clearer and cleaner now. He was meant to be Captain, so why did he feel like he’d been stranded on a desert island?

And again he reminded himself that this negativity wouldn’t last.

“Asshole,” he said frowning at himself in the mirror.

Then Jim understood - what went on in his head, who he fucked and what he chose to focus on wasn’t enough.

There needed to be a symbolic act to show how things had to change between him and McCoy.

He’d allowed things to get messy when they’d gone to Georgia. He should have been more enthusiastic about the fishing and less enthusiastic about the fucking.

Merely saying that _word_ in his head caused his stomach to turn again. Kirk wasn’t sure if it was revulsion at being such a pussy, or lust.

Sure he was able to change his thinking and his goals, but not these feelings.

Being in love was seriously annoying.

 **2.**  
It would be like a suicide, Kirk realized. Cutting out his own heart, ending it all.

But it had to be done.

His comm. bleeped.

 _-Just thought about you when I jerked off in the shower. Niiice._ It was Kevin.

 _-Stalker_. He comm’d back.

 _-Slut!_ Came the reply.

 _-And me not even a captain yet! YOU’RE the slut._

 _-XXXX!_

Kirk couldn’t help but smile.

Then his face resettled into something else.

He scooped up his back pack and headed for McCoy’s room. He knew his friend’s schedule as well as his own and he knew he had at least an hour to sort everything out. He’d have to be meticulous. It needed to be clean. Efficient.

Cut off the branch to save the tree.

 

 **3.**  
McCoy’s room stared back all innocent.

There was the bed where he’d never fucked McCoy, but that had provided the stage for a scene which had both freaked him out but also, mercifully, snapped his brain back on course. It might have been a bed in a monastery with its neatly tucked corners and lack of incriminating evidence.

Kirk scanned the room and began to collect items that he’d scattered about it in the past nine months. A pair of sneakers under the bed, yep, taking those.

He’d step back a while, he decided. Once a few weeks had passed, maybe he could face guying around with Bones again. Maybe.

And the image of Bones, of that expression on his face, the way his eyelids were soft and dark, his head thrown back, teeth clenched and chin raised as Jim sucked him, that expression, the visual that accompanied every jerk-off since March, _that_ would have to go.

A surge of anger. What _really_ fucking hurt was that McCoy had looked like that for him, _and_ looked like that while being given a seeing to by Asshole The Third.

Kirk hated that Bones would let James fuck him when he hadn’t trusted Jim enough in Georgia. He’d said he hadn’t been ready and needed to take everything one step at a time. Sure Bones had known James a lot longer, but surely they hadn’t had the same close friendship. First the bastard stole his name, now he’d stolen Jim’s … right? Place? Love? What the fuck was this, anyway? Kirk rubbed between his eyes. Hope. He’d stolen hope.

It hadn’t mattered at the time, in Georgia. It was part of this new-found, exciting, _shared_ tenderness, that McCoy felt he could be so honest with Jim. They’d had all the time in the world, hadn’t they?

Kirk spread pills on the bedspread from the bathroom cabinet – so many remedies Bones had tried for his hay fever, his food allergies, and dust allergies. So much poison.

What a fool - Kirk had been under the illusion that it _would_ happen when McCoy trusted him enough, and that would just be a matter of time.

Time was something Kirk couldn’t get his head around – not when it came to Bones and his moods swings.

They’d got back to campus and McCoy had turned in on himself like a sea anemone with the tide out. In the transporter, he was Mr I’ve Had So Much Sex I Can’t sit Down. And those fucking boots! Kirk adjusted the front of his jeans then swept the pills into the garbage chute. What the fuck had happened?

“Computer, medical waste.”

 

 **4.**  
“Computer!”

“Yes, Jim?” the soft female voice said.

“I need to change the code on the door…”

“That will require Dr McCoy’s voice activation, Cadet Kirk,” came back the even reply.

Hey, if there was one thing Jim Kirk could do was talk a woman round.

“You see, computer, Dr McCoy and I have had a…disagreement, between me and you…”

Silence.

“So, sweetheart, what I need you to do is change the number without telling me what it is. Then comm it to Dr McCoy. You could say that there had been an attempted break in – although you might want to watch you don’t scare the old boy into having a heart attack!” He smiled to himself when he imagined how grouchy Bones would receive this news. Then he frowned when he remembered that moments like this, the feeling of warmth of _knowing_ McCoy would end with what he was about to do.

“Dr McCoy does not have a heart condition. It appears from his replicator records that he eats a healthy diet although too many units of al…”

“Yes, okay. Just change the fucking number.”

“Number changed, Cadet Kirk. New code sent to Dr McCoy and Campus Security. Have a nice day.”

He wondered whether it would have served some kind of dramatic purpose to leave a note:

 _I couldn't live without you. That's why I've done this._

What would have been the point? What made this truly awful and bleak was that in actuality, Kirk _could_ live without him. It was just going to be shit. He scooped some socks and condoms he found in a drawer into his backpack.

As the door whooshed behind him, it was small comfort that he’d be able to hack into security with little effort should he ever need the number. He didn’t look back to check. There was nothing Kirk needed that he’d left there.

It appeared that one of the laws of the universe, one they hadn’t covered in astrophysics, was that just because you love someone, it didn’t follow they’d necessarily love you back. Kirk swore he would never make that mistake again.

 

CONTINUED in next part!


	6. 22-24 (of24)

**Autopsy of the Heart - parts 22-24 (of 24)  
**

 **Part 22  
The Jesus Complex  
Or  
It Hurts So Good**

 **July 2256  
1\. **  
The comm delivering his new keypad number had McCoy dry heaving. He had anticipated some reaction, but not this absolute ending.

McCoy realized now that he'd been stupid to hope that they could salvage some shred of friendship.

And the insane thing was, he had done nothing wrong. He was just getting on with his life.

 **2.**  
He thought of Joan of Arc, of Sebastian, of Durer’s self-portrait as he lay on his bed. He thought about suffering and pain and how the human face could be a thing of beauty, even in loss.

He wondered what George Kirk looked like in his martyrdom – did he turn his eyes up to the heavens? Did he find peace?

 **3.**  
Other people simply weren’t an option for McCoy. He needed to keep the fuck away from them and their stupid faces and normal lives. They wouldn’t understand - how did you even begin to explain to people that you had broken up with someone when you weren’t ‘together’ with in the first place? Best to avoid them. Fortunately McCoy had laid enough sour-faced foundations not to attract any attention when he really felt blue.

 **4.**  
He had done nothing wrong, he decided – he was just misunderstood. Jim had no right. No right to own him, and no right to judge him.

Jim just didn’t understand what made Leonard McCoy tick.

That’s why Jocelyn hadn’t wanted him anymore

That’s why Jim didn’t want him.

It wasn’t him, _it was them_.

McCoy kind of liked his self-defense mechanism.

 

 **Part 23  
Ellipsis  
Or  
The Phantom Limb**

  
 **August-September 2256  
1\. **   
They hadn't so much as bumped into each other over the summer break.

What was the mathematical probability of that?

Kirk, Sulu and two other cadets from pilot class, had volunteered for a month in Europe fighting forest fires - using basic, seat-of-the-pants flying, scooping up sea water and dumping it in the fires' paths. This formed the basis of a budding friendship between the two men.

Kirk liked Sulu a lot, but he didn’t make the mistake again of getting too close. It made it too damn painful thinking about what he'd lost with McCoy.

Loneliness, he decided, was not too high a price to pay for clarity of thought, and he sensed Sulu's silent agreement.

And he was going to learn fencing - he couldn't wait to get back.

 **2.**  
McCoy worked through the summer at the hospital because, well, thanks to the divorce - he could use the money.

It was also clear to him that while, in matters of the heart, he sucked, he was an extraordinary doctor.

He'd taken his eye off the ball. His work had always been his solace, his reason for getting up in the morning, the place he knew _who_ he was. After all, this was why he'd joined Starfleet - sure it was a way of running away from it all, but think about what he was running _towards_.

His Jim-scar would fade in time. He'd just have to make damn sure he’d never get burned again.

Then again, McCoy could say one thing for sure - knowing you're a fool doesn't automatically make you wise. Which was a damned shame because he'd been the biggest fool of all - how could he have ever thought someone like Jim Kirk could be even half-way satisfied with him?

He really fucking missed his friend.

 **3.**  
Back on campus, classes had started again and Kirk tended to sit in a different part of the cafeteria than in his first year. This way, with a different view of the lawns, a different route to the hatch, and well away from where the medical cadets tended to sit, he might not remember that McCoy _hadn't_ pulled up a chair next to him and invaded his personal space with those long thighs of his.

Naturally, he'd hacked in to download McCoy's new schedule, so he could better avoid him. He told himself that pouring over every detail of this, imagining him studying at his desk, or walking to the hospital with his messenger bag, or drinking sweet coffee, proved that _knowing_ what was wrong didn't mean that he would automatically act right.

He really fucking missed his friend.

 **3.**  
McCoy couldn't bring himself to go into San Francisco for a few weeks, and then when he did, he avoided their favorite diner, the street it was in and, for a while, the entire neighborhood, so he didn't need to think about their long, zombie breakfasts together.

 **4.**  
At first, Kirk tried to break the sex habit. He didn't want to think about how this wasn't McCoy's mouth around his cock, this wasn't McCoy coming against his shoulder, this wasn't Bones he was fucking into the wall.

But it didn't suit him.

And one thing that Kirk was grateful for, through all this pain, he’d gained more insight into what made him tick. It was time to consider what was _good_ for Jim in all senses of the word.

And now he knew that sex wasn't about getting off for him - it was about connection. Thing is, it needed to be on his terms and with partners who could handle his vibe. No more winged country doctors with a heart the size of the sun - no more notions of monogamy and betrayal - that shit just...he crushed his coffee cup and tossed it into the recycler...it held him back.

So, he became best fuck-buddies with Kevin and Gaila, sometimes one, sometimes the other and occasionally, blessedly with both at once which, given the combined colors of their skins, hair and eyes, was like fucking in an aquarium.

They were entirely on his wave-length with their discreet, no strings, honest, respectful and above all _love-free_ attitude to sex.

He had not let anyone else fuck _him_ \- his heart wasn't ready for that yet. He wouldn't have been surprised if it ever was again.

Hmm...wonder what Kevin was doing for lunch?

 **4.**  
McCoy slipped back into celibacy like he'd found a pair of comfortable shoes.

Of course, his subconscious mind had other ideas, and he woke up hard each morning, thoughts of Jim flitting away like frightened birds as soon as he opened his eyes.

In the shower, he allowed his mind to play around the same scene over and over again.

That time in Georgia when Jim had asked him if anyone had told him he was beautiful - after that, he'd...

 _... taken Jim's hands in his and kissed his palms, gently, softly, running his tongue along the calluses, darting between his fingers, sucking the tips, feeling Jim's nails catch against his tongue and then he pressed Jim onto his back and lay by his side so he could look at his face._

 _He left a trail of kisses along Jim's jaw, inhaling his musk at his throat, momentarily resting the palm of his hand on Jim's forehead to memorize its width, running his thumb down the length of his nose from bridge to tip, circling the nostrils, feeling Jim's breath on his fingers, and his mouth - Jesus his_ mouth _\- "Close your eyes." he'd said._

 _He'd not once looked into them in those minutes as he didn't want to be distracted while he explored that beautiful fucking face, loving the stubble, noticing how it felt when he rubbed his wrist on Jim's cheek, and the contrasting smoothness of his eye-lids. He kissed them and braced himself. "Open your eyes," he'd said._

 _And if he'd gasped – he really can't remember – it was something he could forgive himself for. He imagined it must have been like this for ancient civilizations when the sun came back after an eclipse - the relief he felt when he saw that blue, that color he'd thought he'd have a lifetime to enjoy creating stupid similes for in his head…_

This was how he timed his orgasm in the shower, thinking about _that_ moment, wondering what Jim might have been feeling and cherishing and, above all, that he'd looked at _him._

McCoy just wasn't ready for anyone else.

 **5.**  
Kirk walked away from fights. He couldn't risk needing treatment not so much because it might be McCoy who would fix him up, (that would have been painful enough), but he knew he wouldn't be able to cope with anyone else touching him like that for the time being – anyone showing that amount of care.

 **6.**  
McCoy hadn't touched whiskey ever since they'd last shared a drink together. Hell, he still drank - just not that. The taste would have brought back Jim's tongue in his mouth, or that time he'd trickled a trail of it along Jim’s belly and licked it off real slow, or the countless times he'd lined up their shots and beers ready on the bar while he watched Jim play pool.

This was why addictions were so hard to break - you gave up the thing that threatened to kill you, you often had to give up all the other things associated with it that made life worth living.

 **7.**  
Kirk avoided what had been their favorite bars but one evening he'd arranged to meet Sulu downtown. His friend didn't live on campus since he was local and sometimes it was easier to meet up his side of town. He owed him a drink for all the one-to-one coaching, after all.

The moment he took up a place at the bar, Kirk saw that girl, the one he'd been talking to the day they'd got back from Georgia.

"Hey, Jim!" And she was by his side in an instant, her arm round his waist and lips pressed to his cheek in an affectionate but chaste kiss. As she pulled away, he heard Sulu behind him.

"Am I interrupting something?" Sulu was all smiles.

"Hikaru, this is Emily - we're old buddies, aren't we?"

"Sure, where's your boyfriend these days, Jim? He working?"

Sulu and Kirk exchanged looks.

"Oh. Sorry." Emily said, "Me and my big mouth. Did you guys break up?"

"Em, I - it wasn't like that. I still see him around..." Kirk's voice trailed off as he tried to remember _something_. He looked at his feet.

"So why was he looking daggers at me that last time we had a drink?"

"I don't remember --" he didn't.

"Hey, Jim," Emily poked him gently on the arm, "I remember - I remember you were all tan from some fishing trip." She waggled her eyebrows, "With your doctor friend. Don't you remember - you were telling me all about it and then he comes into the bar wearing some really hot boots..?"

Yes, he remembered. Shit.

"Hey, I don't know Doctor McCoy personally, but he has a reputation for _looking daggers_ that's spread across the campus," Sulu chuckled, taking his water from the bar.

It was like the moment when the safe dropped from the sky and dented the sidewalk. Kirk may have stopped breathing for a second while his brain caught up with the realization.

So that was why McCoy had 'changed' when they'd come back from Georgia. He'd _had_ to change - he'd obviously interpreted Kirk’s little smooch with Emily as a rejection.

Boy had he ever fucked up. No wonder Bones had withdrawn like that. Shit, if Pike had based his pep-talk on James Kirk's inability to spot the obvious - he'd still be waiting tables in Iowa.

He pulled out his comm and with shaking hands keyed in McCoy's number. He'd deleted it so he wouldn't happen upon his name, but now he didn't even need to consciously remember it – his fingers found it all by themselves.

The next part was harder. While Em and Sulu chatted, he tried several different messages and deleted them all:

 _I owe you an apology._   
No he didn't, really. Well - maybe for being clumsy in his affections with others. But why hadn't McCoy said something - anything rather than pull away like that?

 _I miss you_  
Fuck. So much. He picked up his next drink from beside Sulu.   
"Sorry, man, just need to sort out a 'situation' - I'll join you in a while, okay?" But Sulu was perfectly fine with Emily; she was in the year behind in piloting and was loving the stories about Europe and his singed eyebrows.

 _I love you_  
No. Fucking. Way.

 _I fucked up_  
But he hadn't. He'd been open and honest. He hadn't asked Bones to change for him and if the guy couldn't handle how he was, who he was, well...

In the end he settled for:  
 _It's like a phantom limb.  
Jim. _

Then he hit _send_ before he could change his mind.

 **8.**  
It was two hours before McCoy was able to send a reply.

 _Get your scrawny ass over here._

And a whole hour after that before Jim was on his doorstep.

"Fucking cabs," Kirk said simply.

 

 **Part 24  
Love Lessons**

 **September 2256**   
Barely two seconds passed, enough time for Kirk to take in the sight of a freshly showered, damp-haired, barefoot McCoy, and he'd been pulled through the door and his friend had him pressed against the wall, moaning against his mouth, mumbling stuff between licks and bites that Kirk really couldn't make out. Except for when he said, "You taste of watermelon." Like this was significant.

"That's why I decided to get back in touch, I've nearly run out," Jim smirked licking his lips.

"Plus you fucking miss me."

Jim nodded and his voice broke a little, "And it won't go away."

"Annoying as hell, isn't it?

McCoy pulled away from him and set to rummaging around in the small kitchen area. "I have whiskey!" he grinned, holding a bottle aloft like a scalp. "Got this in Georgia, remember?"

Kirk could only nod. He scanned the small living area and found his eyes drawn towards the screen which hid the foot of the bed. 'That' night McCoy had left it transparent - of course because who would have expected him to burst in like that? The agony of that tableau hadn't left him yet.

He cleared his throat, "Where's that fucking drink then?"

McCoy had re-arranged the room a little and the desk and couch seemed to have swapped positions. He saw Kirk looking.

"Place is too small," he shrugged, "no matter where you put the furniture." They sat down opposite each other.

"I like it here." Kirk loosened his laces and kicked his boots off. McCoy watched him over his glass, his hair was longer than usual - it looked good on him. Fucking good.

"I haven't had whiskey in a while," McCoy said.

"Me neither." Kirk stood up and began unbuttoning his shirt watching his friend, drinking in the sight of him and loving the eyebrow thing and scowl that provided a silent commentary as, heart pounding, he removed his shirt and tossed it on the floor.

"Nor - this -" McCoy put his empty glass down on the floor by his bare feet and he stood up too, bringing his hands to the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up over his head in one movement. His action revealed his slender chest that Kirk had smothered in kisses so many times in Georgia, and that he'd been convinced he'd never see again. McCoy tossed his t over his shoulder like a fucking bullfighter or something, and then ran his fingers through his hair to fix it.

"Me neither," Kirk said, unbuttoning his flies.

"What, no sex? Has the fucking Moon developed tits or something?" McCoy snorted.

"Lots of sex, Bonesy, just no making love." Kirk advanced towards him, but not touching. "There's a big difference I'm realizing." His stupid heart wouldn't shut up.

McCoy looked away and that just killed him. "Jim. I can live without the sex, and I think the making love might just destroy me, so how do we get through this?"

"Teach me, Bones..." Jim could see something cross McCoy's face - anger? Frustration? His voice was tight when he finally spoke.

"What the fuck could I teach you? I'm just a country doctor - I've had sex with less than a dozen people in my time, and I was stupid enough to fall in love with two of those."

Two?

"I want you to teach me how to make love, Bones."

"Jesus, Jim --"

"I can't control how I feel," Kirk said, “But I can control what I do.” He grabbed McCoy's wrist and pulled it to his chest - he wanted him to feel what he was doing to him. "I can ignore it, I _can_ walk away from you but I just don't fucking want to."

"I need more drink," McCoy said and Kirk released his hand so he could top up their glasses. Kirk watched him as he processed what had just occurred then -

"You want to learn?" McCoy finally said after they'd drained their second glass. "Get on the couch but take those too tight pants off first."

"Tight?" Kirk looked down at himself.

"Why else do you think everyone looks at your ass?" The expression on McCoy's face wasn't as light as his words. "Now, take 'em off."

Fuck, his voice had become more humid, more country and Jim's cock responded like it had come home and wanted taking notice of.

"First thing we need to take into consideration is that you think with your dick, so we're gonna disable it, so to speak, so your heart can take over."

"Huh? That sounds, um, _medical_?"

McCoy shook his head. "I'm a doctor, not a sadist. Now shut up and stop thinkin' so damn much."

Then he shoved Jim to the couch so he sprawled at one end. Kirk liked how he took a minute to 'enjoy' him. McCoy had told him a whole lot of times in Georgia how he liked to just watch him, like he was some kind of porn movie or something. He rubbed himself while Jim got dressed, or shaved or used his comm or any other mundane act he could 'catch' him in - pervert, he thought with a smirk.

McCoy straddled Jim's thighs and leaned in for a long kiss. He tasted good - the whiskey and maybe some sushi from a hasty dinner, and soon he was going to taste of dick if Kirk had his way.

"Trouble with you, James Tiberius, is you're a control freak. You like your adrenaline rush but you wanna be the driver. Well, I'm takin' the wheel for the while. Jus' enjoy the ride."

And with his mouth on Jim's neck, McCoy grasped Jim’s cock hard, too hard, with his right hand. He still had his jeans on and the feel of the denim against his naked thighs, the rasp of McCoy's stubble against his neck and face, raked out a feeling of vulnerability from somewhere that had Jim sweating with need.

"Fuck me, Bones," he hissed not quite sure how he'd lived without this for all those months.

"Later. But first you're going to come hard now, to clear your mind, then you're gonna spend some time making things up to me with that slutty tongue of yours, and those clever fingers, _then_ you're gonna make love to me good - fucking me with this." He yanked hard on Jim.

"Hurts," Jim whimpered, trying to buck up into McCoy's hand, his own clinging to McCoy's arms. Wasn't sure if he liked this, needed some lube or spit or something, and needed to come soon. His thighs burned as McCoy kept up his drawling, mocking, whispered obscenities right up close to his ear. No one else did this to him, no one else made him lie down like this - it fucking terrified him, he thought, as he stilled on the knife edge.

"Give it up, darlin'," he heard Bones murmur into his ear, and he did, bucking, moaning and gasping in weak, angry, grateful stutters.

McCoy bit him hard on the shoulder, working him ruthlessly despite the fact that he'd pulled every last drop out of him until _he_ decided it was time to stop, not Jim.

They stayed like that for a while - silent apart from an occasional hitched breath that hadn't quite fallen in with the rest. He could feel McCoy's legs trembling and feel the sweat between them where their faces slid against each other.

"That was - " he finally managed to say, but he never got to finish because McCoy's mouth was on his again, this time soft and gentle. He took his time, exploring with his tongue and Kirk remained passive for one more long moment until he sensed that the dance had changed and he broke the kiss, and encouraged McCoy to stand.

This time, the kiss was entirely led by Jim - he pushed in gently, grasped McCoy's tongue and sucked it into him and McCoy took Kirk's calm adoration like a man.

Kirk pulled away and made a trail of random nips and kisses around his jaw and Adam's apple. Of course, Bones was still very aroused but Kirk intended to keep him that way as long as necessary.

"Let me take these off." He pushed the semen soaked jeans down and waited while Bones stepped out of them. Yet again he wore no underwear.

"I was making time," Bones growled, reading his mind.

"I love this cock of yours," Jim sighed, taking his time to remember the length, the girth and the shape of it. He used his fingers first, and mostly his nails and he inhaled deep, remembering how Bones smelled when he wanted Jim like this.

"What did you do Jim, that day, when you saw us?" Kirk was surprised to hear.

Jim ran his tongue to the tip, loving how Bones went up on his toes. He pulled his mouth away for a second, "You know... I went for coffee, maybe a couple... to clear my head."

"And did you, clear your... _oh_...head?"

"Yes. How about you?"

Silence.

Finally McCoy said, "Can we lie down? I've been on my feet all day."

McCoy groaned as his body sank into the mattress. Kirk ran his hands up McCoy's calves, noting the rough hairs, the skin behind his knees which made him buck again, hmm...what would happen if he licked that bit? He found out that it made McCoy's usual potty mouth turn into a sewer.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing, Jim, that's jus'..."

"Ticklish?"

 _"Fuck._ "

He licked again. "Exquisite?"

"You _shit!"_

"Want me to fuck you yet?" Kirk's hands had cupped his balls, kneading and raking them gently with his nails, then found Bones’ perineum, crawling and tickling there too.

"Now would be nice." McCoy's hands settled back down on the bed after their brief flail above Kirk's head in response to his tortures. "Please?" His voice was thick with trademark sarcasm.

"You're all politeness when it comes to getting fucked, huh? Getting what you want?"

"Thank my Gram for that. She taught me manners."

Kirk slid his hands to McCoy's hips, to the dip of his inner thigh.

"So what did you do?"

He saw McCoy open an eye.

"When?"

"That night -"

McCoy closed his eye. "I took a shower," he said simply. "You don't own me, Jim. Loving someone isn't a set of keys."

Kirk knew that was all he was going to get. He nudged McCoy's knees up and spread his thighs wide, exposing him then without any warning. He pushed in hard, stabbing him with his tongue and enjoying the surprised reaction.

Don't own him, huh? Bones would be fucking begging for a ball and chain by the time he'd finished with him.

Jim breathed in the musk and heat as he tongue fucked McCoy mercilessly, marveling at how this reduced his friend to a blathering mess, the brilliant scientist nowhere to be seen. God he loved sex! A few torturous strokes of McCoy's cock didn't help matters either.

"Jim, I'm _dying_ here." McCoy's voice was thick and low.

Kirk pulled free for a second, "Say he- _yah_ again."

"Here?"

Cool - Little Jim was awake again thanks to that drawl - great timing. Jim went back to work with his tongue, sucking on then slipping his finger into its very wet place, sitting back on his heels and watching in wonder as Bones twisted and moaned before him.

"Fucking beautiful," he sighed, "Where's the lube?"

McCoy laughed and pointed vaguely in the direction of the bedside cabinet. " _There_. And I'm not saying it again no matter how much it turns you on."

"Everything about you turns me on, Bones," Kirk said seriously, as he slicked up two fingers, "Now put your feet up on my shoulders like a good doctor, and I'll show you."

The second finger slid in easily and as he twisted, felt the heat and watched his friend's face, Jim made a list.

"Your grouchiness, your dirty mouth, your compassion,” each item on the list punctuated with an upward thrust, "your amazing fucking brain, your stupid eyebrows." McCoy's hand went up to feel them in surprise, "your top lip's a bit thin but more than made up for by the sexy bottom one - " He pulled his fingers out, " _Okay_?"

"Do it, Jim, I need you to do it -"

 _Thank_ you.

Jim kneeled and edged forward so he'd line up in position, "Wriggle close," he said as he put a nice big dollop of lube on himself and on McCoy, "and buckle up."

One hand guiding him, the other took McCoy's hand, gripping his fingers - they were going to do this together.

He saw how Bones clenched his teeth and how he breathed deep to relax. He edged forward a millimeter at a time. This had to be right, like it had been for him. This was the final step - McCoy had known that in Georgia, he realized now. That's why he hadn't wanted to - he'd obviously wanted to keep something back, fear maybe...and Jim had fucked up by waving his dick about in that bar. _Shit_. He had to ask--

"Do you trust me, Bones?" He watched McCoy closely, saw his Adam's apple bob before he answered.

"I'm beginning to."

"The way I feel about you, I don't know if there's one word...can..."

Nearly all there. Oh _God_ , the heat, the _primal_ urge Jim felt to fuck Bones hard, _show_ him, but he was able to ignore the roaring in his head, grab the reins. He _had_ to be gentle, that was okay too.

He focused entirely on Bones and away from what was going on in his groin - the way his eyes were almost black, the way Bones gnawed at his lips, eyes blinking as he waited for Jim to be all the way in.

"I'm not yours, and you’re not mine, but I'm not leaving again," Jim had to say.

 _Almost there._

"I learned that I _can_ exist without you, Bones. I did okay."

There, all the way in and he stopped dead, just so they could both adjust mentally as well as physically. Then he began slow, shallow strokes, watching all the while that Bones was okay. "This is good panting, right?" He checked. McCoy nodded. "I was okay, but I was lonely. Real, fucking lonely. _Again_. I like _this_ ," he thrust a little harder, " _you._ A lot. No one else makes me feel like this. And while I have no idea what'll happen in the future, I need to practice what I preach - live like a .. _.oh...God_...like a dog." He stopped a moment, squeezed the base of his cock, released McCoy's fingers, hooking his arm under his friend’s thigh to change the angle.

"Love teaches the rational mind a lesson in humility," Jim said. He hadn't moved inside Bones for a while.

He saw McCoy take a deep breath so he could speak.

"Did you make that up?"

"Nope."

Now he thrust a little harder. "Bones?"

McCoy opened his eyes again, just to roll them.

"What?"

"Do you ever think you have a destiny? I _know_ I have. Pike helped me work that out - I need my own ship. I need to get out there. I can't have anything come in the way."

Kirk pulled out a little further now, gasping with each stroke, "It's my destiny."

"You said that."

Jim couldn't help but smile - that was his Bones, still had an Olympic ability to be irritable even when he was impaled on the cock of a future Starfleet Captain.

"What's yours, Bones?"

"I'm thinkin' in short term goals just now, you know, if you fuck me good an' hard I'll feel pretty fulfilled." He reached forward and pulled Jim over him so their mouths could touch, "I fucking love you, you irritating ego-maniac, and let that sink in because I'm not sayin' it again until it's your birthday otherwise, so help me, I'll turn into a woman. Now shuddup talkin' and fuck me good."

Kirk wasn't handing over the reins that fast. His chest swelled with feeling and although he increased the tempo, he wanted to savor every stroke, wanted to relish the sight of his cock appearing then disappearing inside Bones, an image so fucking gorgeous, only matched by the utter abandon on McCoy's face, each thrust making some new and subtle change happen on it.

Fuck - he really couldn't stand this any more.

"Open your eyes, Bones,' Jim groaned.

And that's when Jim started to fuck Bones hard, trying to work himself towards those eyes, unable to look away from that dark stare. He couldn't get far enough inside him, he couldn't help himself, he didn't want to stop himself saying it as they both pushed and pulled each other towards a heated, desperate, emotional rutting that had them almost bucking off the bed.

"Bones, I lov-" but McCoy's hand had come up to his lips.

"When you get your ship, Jim, tell me then, okay?"

Jim nodded and he knew it was okay to let go, forgetting reason and words and excuses, throwing them both into this free fall of adrenaline and feeling, unafraid and relieved that they were _here_ in that moment and at least for now, Jim wasn't alone. Bones kept saying Jim’s name and, Jim held in the words as was necessary, and then they were coming, _being_ together now and falling, falling, holding on to each other; and in the moaning, burning ecstasy there was still some thought - understanding of one thing - that the uncertainty of what the future bore didn't matter as long as they could have this.

 **FIN**

Thank you for reading, I know it was a long one! Feed my soul – let me know how much you loved it!

 

NB: Jim was paraphrasing Alain de Botton who wrote:  
 _Love taught the analytic mind a certain humility, the lesson that however hard it struggled to reach immobile certanties [numbering its conclusions and embedding them in neat series] analysis could never be anything but flawed - and therefore never stray far from the ironic._


End file.
